Facelift! And a Few Observations
Hope you all like the facelift just conducted on this blog. Still working out some glitches but it should be fully functional for you. Thanks for bearing with me. And now I will resume regular blogging.
So a few timely observations, if you don't mind.
* Town Hells: There's a constitutional right to act like a jackass and disrupt a public meeting claiming we're on the brink of Sovietization. What I find rather striking is that these same jackasses who are bent out of shape about government spending and government intervention in health care are the very same folks who pasted yellow ribbons on their cars and donned lapel flags and pullled the lever in the voting booth for precisely the same political forces that spent us into bankruptcy in a useless war and who deployed Big Brother to snoop on American civilians. No irony here to see, just move along.
* Disproportionate Response: So how many people, in total, do you think (to date) have actually disrupted one of these health care town halls by screaming at the top of their lungs, threatening to water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrant-President, or complained that Jewish people control the Federal Reserve? I mean, really, how many? Five hundred? A thousand? Three thousand? I would bet the number is no higher. Now, ask yourself. How much of the news focus have they received compared to the hundreds of thousands, really the millions, who protested the run-up to the war in Iraq? Would you say the proportion is anywhere near reality?
* CNN The Worst Political Team on Television: There I was late last night listening to CNN on XM Sirius in the car and had the misfortune of tuning into mental giant Wolf Blitzer. Who did he have on to "analyze" health care policy? Why, none other than Las Vegas magician Penn Jillette and former (way way former) Nixonite flunkie Ben Stein who has made a living the last 25 years bot engaging in politics but rather as a dead-pan actor doing commercials for such health-based products as Clear Eyes. Apparently, Blitzer's first choice for punditry, Michael Jackson, was otherwise engaged.
* Best Medical Care in The World: We've got it. That's what the Tooth Fairy told me. We spend two to three times more per capita for health care than any other country in the world and yet we are ranked 37th in level of care. We've been outstripped by Slovenia. Readers of this blog, of course, know the scare tactic being used about the dangers of the government standing between us and our doctors. But I have to say, I'd love the government, any government, preferably a ruthless dictatorship, who would stand between us and the blood-sucker health insurance companies we are forced to submit to. I don't know about you, but I have to spend many hours a month not only wrangling with and fighting with said insurers (when I'm no longer even ill) not to mention the effort I must invest just to try to understand the deliberately unfathomable statements they send out. Government, please!
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August 13th, 2009 at 6:40 am
Looks good though I liked the old one too. Been having trouble getting through the last couple of days. And it’s seems that the LAT had a makeover too:
http://www.latimes.com/
August 13th, 2009 at 6:56 am
Diego is right. My two favorite blogs, Marc Cooper & Dodger Thoughts, revamped at the same time.
Synchronicity!
August 13th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Fabulous piece and the makeover nice.
Woody: shut the fuck up. We already know what you are going to say and Marc has already trumped you.
What would be interesting is a nuts and bolts discussion on just what is on the plate in the first health care reform package– which will be a far cry from what other countries have in play– but it will be our first attempt at weaning people off the existing blood sucking insurance plans.
I still don’t understand Obama’s plan. I do know advocacy groups were in play before the election to agitate for a real single payer and universal plan.
How about we look at what is on offer compared to where we need to be to have a genuinely viable one and how that transition might be able to happen.
I would like some comments on the nugget about offering a plan that kicks the for profit insurer off the table. It seemed a way to just deconstruct the old system organically.
August 13th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Some interesting talking points:
Ralph Nader: Health Care Hypocrisy
July 25th, 2009 · 39 Comments
By Ralph Nader
Nader.org
About the only lesson Barack Obama has learned from the Hillary and Bill health insurance debacle of 1993-1994 is to leave Michelle Obama out of his current drive to get something—anything—through the Congress labeled “reform”.
Otherwise, he is making the same mistakes of blurring his proposal, catering to right-wing Democrats and corporatist Republicans, who want an even mushier “reform” scam, and cutting deals with the drug, hospital, and health insurance industries.
His political opponents become bolder with each day as they see his party base in Congress weakening, his polls dropping, and a confused public being saturated with unrebutted propaganda by the insatiable profiteering, subsidized health care giants.
Their campaign-money-greased minions on Capitol Hill and the corporatist Think Tanks and columnists are seizing on President Obama’s aversion to conflict and repeated willingness to water down what he will fight for.
The loud and cruel baying pack comes in the form of William Kristol (“This is not time to pull punches. Go for the kill.”), Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) (“If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”), and Charles Krauthammer yammering wildly about medical malpractice and tort law. Krauthammer does not substantiate his claims or mention the many victims of malpractice as he gleefully predicts “Obamacare sinking.”
All these critics have gold-plated health insurance, of course.
Hillary tried to appease the drug and hospital companies. Obama invites them to the White House, where they presumably pledged to give up nearly $300 billion dollars over ten years without any specifics about how this complex assurance can be policed.
No matter, in return Obama and his aides agreed not to press Congress to authorize the federal government to negotiate drug prices with the drug industry. Don’t worry: the taxpayers will pay the bill.
At a meeting on July 7 at the White House between drug company executives, Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), the industry, according to The New York Times, was promised that the final legislative package would not allow the reimportation of cheaper medicines from Canada or other countries even if they meet our drug safety standards.
Since these industry meetings at the White House are private, no one knows how many other concessions were made. What is known is that Barack Obama knows better. A former supporter of single payer health insurance (often described as full Medicare for all with free choice of physician and hospital and the elimination of hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate administrative costs and billing fraud), then-Illinois state senator Barack Obama predicted, in 2003, that it would be enacted once Congress and the White House were controlled by Democrats. Well, that is now the situation, but, as President, he believes single payer is not “practical”.
Single payer health insurance is supported by a majority of the American people, majority of physicians and nurses, and nearly ninety members of the House of Representatives. (See H.R. 676 and singlepayeraction.org.)
A clear replacement of the private health insurance companies with federal insurance, as Medicare for the elderly did in 1965, allows for clear language. Twenty thousand people die in America each year because they cannot afford health insurance, according to the Institute of Medicine. Hundreds of thousands more suffer because they have no insurance to treat their diseases or injuries.
Single payer means everyone is covered from birth, as is the case now in every western nation. Imagine no lives lost or suffering due to no health insurance.
Fuzzy proposals, regularly altered and over-complicated due to the hordes of avaricious corporate lobbyists, make politicians like Obama very susceptible to lurid descriptions and lies by his vocal, well-insured opponents. Finally, the Obama people are using “health insurance reform”, rather than the misnomer “health care reform” which opened them up to charges that government would take over health care. All proposals, including single payer, are based on private delivery of health care.
Now enters the well-insured libertarian Cato Institute with full-page ads in the Washington Post and The New York Times charging Obama with pursuing government-run health care. A picture of Uncle Sam pointing under the headline “Your New Doctor.” Nonsense. The well-insured people at Cato should know better than to declare that this “government takeover” would “reduce health care quality.”
About 100,000 lives are lost from medical-hospital negligence per year, according to the Harvard School of Public Health. This vast tragedy is hardly going to get worse under universal government health insurance that assembles data patterns to reduce waste, enhances quality, and transparency. By contrast, the secretive big health insurers who make more money the more they deny claims, ignore their loss prevention duties.
In 1950, when President Truman sent a universal health insurance bill to Congress, the American Medical Association (AMA) launched what was then a massive counterattack. The AMA claimed that government health insurance would lead to rationing of health care, higher prices, diminished choices and more bureaucracy. The AMA beat both Truman and the unions that were backing the legislation, using the phrase “socialized medicine” to scare the people.
Fifty-nine years later, “corporatized medicine” has produced all these consequences, along with stripping away the medical profession’s independence. Today, the irony is that the corporate supremacists are accusing reformers in Washington of what they themselves have produced throughout the country. Rationing, higher prices, less choice, and mounds of paperwork and corporate red tape. Plus, fifty million people without any health insurance at all.
On Thursday, July 30, 2009, there will be a mass rally for a single payer system in Washington, DC. It is time to put what most Americans want on the table. (See http://www.Healthcare-Now.org for more information.)
August 13th, 2009 at 7:44 am
(See H.R. 676 and singlepayeraction.org.)
Anyone shop at Whole Foods?
Apparently the CEO gibbered to the WSJ against a single payer system and there is a boycott against Whole Foods now.
Click on above website for a blog entry detail.
Trader Joes is still kosher, thank god!
August 13th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Here is the summary and full version of H.R. 676
http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676/
August 13th, 2009 at 8:43 am
http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676/
Nevermind here is the front page. Just to shut Woody and the other idiots up with a little preemptive strike with the FACTS.
Introduced by Rep. John Conyers.
Read the full bill.
Read an annotated version of the bill.
Brief Summary of the Legislation
The United States National Health Care Act establishes a unique American national universal health insurance program. The bill would create a publicly financed, privately delivered healthcare system that uses the already existing Medicare program by expanding and improving it to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories. The goal of the legislation is to ensure that all Americans will have access, guaranteed by law, to the highest quality and most cost effective healthcare services regardless of their employment, income, or healthcare status. With over 45-75 million uninsured Americans, and another 50 million who are under- insured, the time has come to change our inefficient and costly fragmented non-healthcare system.
Who is Eligible?
Every person living or visiting in the United States and the U.S. Territories would receive a United States National Health Insurance Card and ID number once they enroll at the appropriate location. Social Security numbers may not be used when assigning ID cards.
Healthcare Services Covered
This program will cover all medically necessary services, including primary care, inpatient care, outpatient care, emergency care, prescription drugs, durable medical equipment, long term care, mental health services, dentistry, eye care, chiropractic, and substance abuse treatment. Patients have their choice of physicians, providers, hospitals, clinics, and practices. No co-pays or deductibles are permissible under this act.
Conversion To A Non-Profit Healthcare System
Private health insurers shall be prohibited under this act from selling coverage that duplicates the benefits of the USNHI program. Exceptions to this rule include coverage for cosmetic surgery, and other medically unnecessary treatments. Those who are displaced as the result of the transition to a non- profit healthcare system are the first to be hired and retrained under this act.
Cost Containment Provisions/Reimbursement
The National USNHI program will set reimbursement rates annually for physicians, allow for global budgets (annual lump sums for operating expenses) for healthcare providers; and negotiate prescription drug prices. A “Medicare For All Trust Fund” will be established to ensure a dedicated stream of funding, as well as an annual appropriation to ensure optimal levels of funding for the program.
The conversion to a not-for-profit healthcare system will take place over a 15 year period, through the sale of U.S. treasury bonds.
HR 676 Would Reduce Overall Healthcare Costs
Families Pay Less
A study by nationally recognized economist, Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic Research and Policy concluded that under H.R. 676, a family of three making $40,000 per year would spend approximately $1900 per year for healthcare coverage. Currently, (in 2007) the average annual premium for families covered under an employee health plan is $11,000. (National Coalition on Health Care.)
Businesses Pays Less
In 2005, without reform, the average employer that offers coverage was contributing $2,600 to healthcare per employee (for much skimpier benefits), or 217.00 per month. Under HR 676, the average costs to employers for an employee making $30,000 per year will be reduced to $1,425 per year; or about $119.00 per month.
Baker’s study reported that HR 676 would reduce health spending in 2005 from $1 trillion, 918 billion dollars to 1 trillion, 861.3 billion dollars, which translates into a saving of $56 billion in overall healthcare spending while covering all of the uninsured. This is a 3% reduction in over-all healthcare spending.
Proposed Funding For HR 676 Program
Maintain current federal and state funding for existing healthcare programs; employer payroll tax of 4.5%, an employee payroll tax of 3.3%, in addition to the already existing 1.45% for Medicare; establish a 5% health tax on the top 5% of income earners; 10% tax on top 1% of wage earners, 1/3rd of 1% stock transaction tax, closing corporate tax loop-holes; repeal the Bush tax cut for the highest income earners.
*For more information, contact Joel Segal or Alexia Smokler, Rep. John Conyers, at (202) 225-5126.
List of Congressional Cosponsors
85 as of July 14, 2009
Rep Abercrombie, Neil [HI-1] – 2/11/2009
Rep Baldwin, Tammy [WI-2] – 1/26/2009
Rep Becerra, Xavier [CA-31] – 3/17/2009
Rep Berman, Howard L. [CA-28] – 1/26/2009
Rep Bishop, Sanford D., Jr. [GA-2] – 2/23/2009
Rep Brady, Robert A. [PA-1] – 2/11/2009
Rep Brown, Corrine [FL-3] – 3/3/2009
Rep Capuano, Michael E. [MA-8] – 2/23/2009
Rep Christensen, Donna M. [VI] – 4/21/2009
Rep Clarke, Yvette D. [NY-11] – 1/26/2009
Rep Clay, Wm. Lacy [MO-1] – 1/26/2009
Rep Cleaver, Emanuel [MO-5] – 2/23/2009
Rep Cohen, Steve [TN-9] – 1/26/2009
Rep Costello, Jerry F. [IL-12] – 2/3/2009
Rep Cummings, Elijah E. [MD-7] – 2/23/2009
Rep Davis, Danny K. [IL-7] – 1/26/2009
Rep Delahunt, William D. [MA-10] – 1/26/2009
Rep Dicks, Norman D. [WA-6] – 6/15/2009
Rep Doyle, Michael F. [PA-14] – 1/26/2009
Rep Edwards, Donna F. [MD-4] – 1/26/2009
Rep Ellison, Keith [MN-5] – 1/26/2009
Rep Engel, Eliot L. [NY-17] – 1/26/2009
Rep Farr, Sam [CA-17] – 1/26/2009
Rep Fattah, Chaka [PA-2] – 2/11/2009
Rep Filner, Bob [CA-51] – 2/11/2009
Rep Frank, Barney [MA-4] – 1/28/2009
Rep Fudge, Marcia L. [OH-11] – 6/2/2009
Rep Green, Al [TX-9] – 2/23/2009
Rep Grijalva, Raul M. [AZ-7] – 1/26/2009
Rep Gutierrez, Luis V. [IL-4] – 1/26/2009
Rep Hare, Phil [IL-17] – 6/11/2009
Rep Hastings, Alcee L. [FL-23] – 2/23/2009
Rep Hinchey, Maurice D. [NY-22] – 1/26/2009
Rep Hirono, Mazie K. [HI-2] – 2/23/2009
Rep Holt, Rush D. [NJ-12] – 6/12/2009
Rep Honda, Michael M. [CA-15] – 2/11/2009
Rep Jackson, Jesse L., Jr. [IL-2] – 3/5/2009
Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [TX-18] – 1/26/2009
Rep Johnson, Henry C. “Hank,” Jr. [GA-4] – 2/3/2009
Rep Kaptur, Marcy [OH-9] – 1/26/2009
Rep Kennedy, Patrick J. [RI-1] – 2/23/2009
Rep Kildee, Dale E. [MI-5] – 2/23/2009
Rep Kilpatrick, Carolyn C. [MI-13] – 1/26/2009
Rep Kucinich, Dennis J. [OH-10] – 1/26/2009
Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] – 1/26/2009
Rep Lewis, John [GA-5] – 3/17/2009
Rep Loebsack, David [IA-2] – 3/24/2009
Rep Lofgren, Zoe [CA-16] – 5/20/2009
Rep Lujan, Ben Ray [NM-3] – 3/24/2009
Rep Maloney, Carolyn B. [NY-14] – 2/23/2009
Rep Markey, Edward J. [MA-7] – 6/12/2009
Rep Massa, Eric J. J. [NY-29] – 1/26/2009
Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] – 1/26/2009
Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] – 3/3/2009
Rep Meek, Kendrick B. [FL-17] – 3/24/2009
Rep Meeks, Gregory W. [NY-6] – 1/26/2009
Rep Miller, George [CA-7] – 3/19/2009
Rep Moore, Gwen [WI-4] – 2/11/2009
Rep Murtha, John P. [PA-12] – 7/9/2009
Rep Nadler, Jerrold [NY-8] – 1/26/2009
Rep Napolitano, Grace F. [CA-38] – 1/26/2009
Rep Norton, Eleanor Holmes [DC] – 5/20/2009
Rep Olver, John W. [MA-1] – 1/26/2009
Rep Pastor, Ed [AZ-4] – 3/19/2009
Rep Payne, Donald M. [NJ-10] – 3/3/2009
Rep Pingree, Chellie [ME-1] – 1/26/2009
Rep Polis, Jared [CO-2] – 1/28/2009
Rep Roybal-Allard, Lucille [CA-34] – 3/30/2009
Rep Rush, Bobby L. [IL-1] – 2/23/2009
Rep Ryan, Tim [OH-17] – 3/5/2009
Rep Schakowsky, Janice D. [IL-9] – 2/23/2009
Rep Scott, Robert C. “Bobby” [VA-3] – 2/23/2009
Rep Serrano, Jose E. [NY-16] – 6/9/2009
Rep Thompson, Bennie G. [MS-2] – 2/23/2009
Rep Tierney, John F. [MA-6] – 1/28/2009
Rep Tonko, Paul D. [NY-21] – 1/26/2009
Rep Towns, Edolphus [NY-10] – 3/31/2009
Rep Velazquez, Nydia M. [NY-12] – 2/23/2009
Rep Waters, Maxine [CA-35] – 3/19/2009
Rep Watson, Diane E. [CA-33] – 1/26/2009
Rep Weiner, Anthony D. [NY-9] – 7/9/2009
Rep Welch, Peter [VT] – 2/23/2009
Rep Wexler, Robert [FL-19] – 2/11/2009
Rep Woolsey, Lynn C. [CA-6] – 1/26/2009
Rep Yarmuth, John A. [KY-3] – 2/23/2009
August 13th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Oh Woody. How it must gall you that John Lewis is one of your Representatives.
I love it.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:46 am
“Anyone shop at Whole Foods?”
No, my strategy for disappearing the disposable income is to cut holes in my pockets.
TJ’s Uber Alles !!!
August 13th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Now…what is in the Obama plan thus far?????
August 13th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Perhaps more “galling” than John Lewis – who can be dismissed as “uppity” – is that Woody’s very own, very conservative district congressman- until recently – and now US Senator, Johnny Isakson, called people like Woody who are pushing this Death Panel nonsense “nuts.”
August 13th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Amen to that, Reg. Unfortunately, the state where I now live doesn’t have a TJ’s and the Whole Foods is too far away. So I am stuck with the shlock at the local corporate food chains though there is a very aggressive slow food movement and county council to increase sustainable agro output locally.
I missssssssssssssssssssssssssssssszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz TJs. Its owned by a German company now, did ya know?
August 13th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Reg, there is a god.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:57 am
I bet Marc shops at Gelson’s. Please tell me I am wrong.
August 13th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Old analysis of McCain vs Obama/Clinton health care reform
But it breaks down the Obama idea which probably is still similar.
It seems goofy to me: employers being responsible rather than automatic deductions through payroll as it should be and a confused mix of coverage angles.
Just don’t get it.
If someone can untangle why bring in the blood suckers at all rather than people contributing through a deduction off their pay check and surgically removing the profit motive….
I am also non plussed as ,consistently, he mentions throwing money at IT as a first priority. Sorry, but I would suggest throwing money to cover actual services the priority.
Its going to be unwieldy no matter what– thats just part of the transition process and streamlining admin protocols should be a part of the process not something you throw millions into off the bat when people are suffering.
August 13th, 2009 at 9:12 am
http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2008/03/a-detailed-anal.html
Oops forgot to put the link. Damn.
August 13th, 2009 at 10:16 am
I’m sure that, if we had all voted for Ralph, he would have successfully enacted a single payer plan.
No, wait, I don’t really believe that, because I’m not a clueless fool who has no understanding of political/economic/power realities.
August 13th, 2009 at 10:28 am
# passing through Says:
August 13th, 2009 at 10:16 am
I’m sure that, if we had all voted for Ralph, he would have successfully enacted a single payer plan.
No, wait, I don’t really believe that, because I’m not a clueless fool who has no understanding of political/economic/power realities.
Yes you are. Your post just proved it.
August 13th, 2009 at 10:30 am
And, gee, its not like Ralph hasn’t, uh, been one of the single most influential agents of change against those political/economic/power realities either– is it?
Whose ass is your head up?
August 13th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Good thing Rosa Parks didn’t check in with you first, eh?
August 13th, 2009 at 10:32 am
All dem big white political/economic/power re al uh ties ‘an all…
August 13th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Off topic – Les Paul passed away – dude invented multi-track recording, the solid body electric guitar and was a great player (who opted to make some bucks selling pop records, rather than listen to the admonishments of Miles Davis who wondered why a guy with Les’s jazz chops put out “corny” recoreds. Well, gee Miles – “Duh!” :
http://www.beautifulhorizons.net/weblog/2009/08/les-paul.html
August 13th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
The whole foods guy’s op ed against health care reform wasn’t any worse than any other selection from that genre. There are plenty of reasons not to shop there anyway, starting with their notoriety for union-busting. TJ’s workers make a lot less than union people at the big-store chains, too, but they are way too hip to care about things like wages and benefits.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
While my guitar gently weeps, Reg.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Reg’s post at BH reminded me of one of my favorite
collaborations: Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler did an album called `Neck to Neck’, and it is a total joy to listen to. I think Les Paul would think so too.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Les is dead. The rest of us aren’t…yet. Consider this in the health care debate:
Where’s the health in health care reform?
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
In the months and years ahead, you’re going to hear a whole lot of talk about health care reform, but most of what you’re going to hear is about reform, not health. You see, there’s this great lie out there, this huge misconception, this big shell game, where all these politicians and power-hungry people think they can convince the public that health care reform is just about shifting paper around and deciding who pays.
But I say that you cannot talk about health care reform with any degree of honesty or credibility until you talk about health. None of the discussion I have seen from anybody out there – not the press, not the health care authorities, not the American Medical Association, not the politicians who are going to ride this issue all the way into public office – covers substantial ideas about actually making people healthier. So I ask: Where’s the health in health care reform?
You can’t reform your way out of chronic disease by changing who pays for it. You can’t take away a nation of degenerative brain disorder sufferers and a whole generation of children who have been born with malfunctioning nervous systems because of the malnutrition the mothers have been experiencing. You can’t take that away by changing who’s writing the check. You can’t solve obesity and diabetes by insuring all the uninsured. This is not a paperwork problem, yet that’s the solution we hear out there. It’s all about paperwork.
It’s all trending towards a national system – a government-sponsored health care system, just like they have in Canada. Now, personally, I’m not necessarily for or against the government-sponsored system. I’ve seen countries do it very well; I’ve seen countries do it poorly, too. It’s not the system that’s good or bad; it’s the idea that you can wiggle your way out of the health care crisis just by shuffling paperwork around and changing who’s writing the checks to cover the costs.
Health care reform: Money vs. people
Now, let’s get serious about this: If you want to reform health care, what are you really talking about here? You’re talking about two things: Cost and people. And that’s the order that most people think of them in, by the way. It’s the money first. Why? As a nation, we’re going bankrupt. We’re already bankrupt, actually, but we’re just making it even worse with these sky-high health care costs.
Our employers are going bankrupt trying to fund the health insurance of their employees. It makes U.S. workers unable to compete in the global marketplace. This is one of the reasons jobs are increasingly shifting overseas. It’s because U.S. workers are just too expensive to insure due to our health care system (if you can call it that). I say you can’t solve this problem by subsidizing insurance or by forcing employers to cover everybody. You can only solve the problem by making people healthier. You’ve got to address the health.
Now, secondly, it comes down to the people because now we have a whole nation of unprecedented illness and chronic disease. Anywhere from 25 to 46 percent of our nation is suffering from mental illness, depending on whom you ask. We have 40 percent of our people on prescription drugs – drugs that take away mental clarity and quality of life. These drugs are killing people at a rate that’s approaching the Holocaust.
At the same time, we’ve got a nation with a public school system that continues to feed our children junk food, soft drinks and candy bars. The school lunch programs are a nutritional disaster. We’ve got hospitals serving hamburgers and fries. We’ve got hospitals where we can buy a pizza. “Come out of heart surgery and get yourself some extra cheese!”
Health reform starts with food reform
You see, all this talk about covering the uninsured and saving people money and all these ridiculous distractions like the Medicare drug discount card are all a shell game. It’s all a show; it’s just theater designed to keep people occupied so that nobody has to talk about the real issues.
The real issues start with the foods – that’s right, the foods. These products are manufactured by big businesses that have a whole lot of influence in Washington, and they don’t want anybody talking about them because their foods are causing these diseases. It’s all that added sugar and white flour, and all those refined carbohydrates. You’ve got hydrogenated oils that function as brain poison and heart poison in the human body. You’ve got sodium nitrate that causes cancer. That’s why people who consume processed meats have a risk of pancreatic cancer that is 67% percent higher than everybody else. You’ve got added salts, artificial colors, all kinds of preservatives and monosodium glutamate (MSG) hidden in foods. It all starts with the foods, so all this talk about who’s going to pay for the disease is all just a distraction so no one has to talk about the foods and the beverages that are causing these diseases in the first place.
The food and beverage companies, of course, would love to keep it that way. They would love for everybody to just keep arguing over who’s paying these sky-high prescription drug prices while ignoring the simple fact that prevention programs and junk food advertising bans could make prescription drugs practically irrelevant. Of course, all these drug companies say they need the money to “find a cure for cancer.” What a brilliant con!
You don’t need to find a cure for cancer if you stop poisoning the public with the national food supply. You don’t need a cure for cancer if nobody has cancer. The way you have a population that’s cancer-free is to teach people about the healing power of sunlight – about getting some sunlight and some vitamin D. You teach people to avoid these dangerous ingredients and you ban them from the food supply: You outlaw hydrogenated oils. You outlaw refined sugar. You outlaw sodium nitrate. That’s what you do if you want to reform health care.
It’s the only approach that makes any sense. It’s the only sane approach. That’s exactly why no one’s talking about it. No, we can’t have anything that actually works in this country because the pharmaceutical industry would lose money. What would all those people who work for the hospitals do and what would the drug companies and all those drug reps and doctors do? Gee, what would people do for jobs if so many people weren’t so sick?
Big Business makes big bucks off a nation of diseased people
Health care and all the discussion about health care reform is really a discussion about managing a nation of diseased people. It’s not about ending disease. It’s not about curing cancer. It’s not about preventing heart disease. It’s about managing these illnesses. The question essentially becomes: “How are we going to keep people on just enough prescription drugs so we make a lot of money from them, but not so many that it kills them?” That’s basically the strategy of Big Pharma. “How are we going to extract a whole lot of profits out of the general public and call it science-based medicine?”
There are all sorts of people – most of them in Washington D.C. – who are scheming about how to make this happen. And sitting to the right of them is, of course, the food industry – the Big Sugar people, the oil processors and the grain processors – the big food companies. They’re all saying, “Hey, don’t mention the foods. Don’t talk about us. Make sure you frame this whole discussion of health care reform in terms of who pays for it and who gets coverage.” That’s because if they can keep you in that little box of thought, then you won’t talk about the causes of these diseases, which are largely found in foods.
Then over on the left side of these decision makers, you’ve got reps from the pharmaceutical industry, and they’re saying, “Make sure our drugs are covered because we want to keep selling drugs and have the government pay for them. That way we’ll shift money from the pockets of taxpayers to ourselves and our investors and we’ll call it public health.”
Wow, what a great scheme, and if the FDA is protecting the U.S. drug market, they can set any price they want because the FDA will say the drugs from overseas are dangerous. The drugs you buy in the United States are perfectly safe, but if you buy the exact same chemical compound from Canada, “No, no, those are dangerous. You’re unpatriotic. How dare you buy them from overseas? You must buy them here in America where we set the prices.” It’s called a monopoly. It’s called protectionism. It’s called screwing the U.S. consumer and it’s what’s going on right now, every single day in America.
Everyone’s out to make a buck
Unless we see a radical shift towards disease prevention rather than disease treatment in this country, what we’re really going to end up with is a health care system that is ultimately designed to do two things. Number one: Extract as much money as possible from the taxpayers and shift it into the pockets of drug companies. Number two: Distract people from the real causes of disease so that everyone continues to believe that disease is just a matter of bad luck or bad genes, and that only drugs can treat or cure any disease.
It seems that everybody out there is greedy and wants to make more money. And most don’t really care who suffers in order to make that money. The politicians, they want to get in power. How do you get in power? You keep big, rich companies happy. That’s how you get in power, and that’s how you stay in power. And once you’re in power, you thank them by passing new legislation that makes sure there is a windfall of public money headed in their direction.
And how do you do that? You announce the Medicare drug discount card and make it illegal for the government to negotiate volume discounts with drug companies. You mandate mental health screening for the entire population. You make sure that health insurance has to cover Viagra even if it’s being prescribed to sex offenders, which is exactly what’s going on in this country. That’s a good example of how insane our health insurance industry and health care coverage really is. We’re using taxpayer dollars to pay for Viagra for people who have been convicted of sex crimes.
Health care reform goes far beyond crunching numbers
Now, I repeat my first statement here, which is that you can’t have an honest debate about health care reform unless you address the issue of health. Yet in the months and years ahead, you’re going to see a whole lot of people out there with all kinds of credentials, degrees and positions of authority, who are going to try to convince you, the consumer, that health care reform has nothing to do with heath. It only has to do with promoting a financial shell game by pushing nonsensical ideas like “the government here to rescue you.” We’re going to mandate coverage for all drugs and it’s going to be paid for by the government.
They don’t talk about who funds the government: The taxpayers. It’s your money. It’s just a matter of how you wish to redistribute it. And frankly, if our nation continues to be so diseased (cancer, obesity and diabetes are all at record heights), then we’re going to basically drive ourselves into extreme poverty because you cannot afford to keep funding chronic disease and the treatment of symptoms through prescription drugs and expensive medical procedures. You can’t keep doing that over and over, with the same patients, generation after generation, if you want your nation to be financially solvent. You just can’t keep doing that. You can’t spend 25 percent of the GDP on health care and be the world economic leader. Do the math.
You’ve got other nations spending a fraction of that on health care. They manage to cover everybody. Most nations will spend at least one or ten percent of their health care budget on prevention. But here in the U.S., we don’t spend anything on prevention. Nothing. In this country, we think prevention should almost be outlawed. “How dare you teach people about nutrition? It’s unproven,” say these doctors, medical researchers, medical journals and corrupt health authorities. “How dare you teach people to heal themselves with foods?” They want to outlaw healing. They want to outlaw nutrition. They want to make sure people only choose drugs. Choose drugs: that’s what makes money for the people in power.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
The bottom line is that if you have a nation of people who are healthy, your health care costs plummet. Do you know what my own personal health care expenses are? Zero. I spend nothing on over-the-counter or prescription drugs and nothing on doctors; nothing whatsoever.
I do spend some of my money on prevention, of course. How do I do that? I visit natural health care practitioners and naturopaths to keep me healthy – not because something hurts or is falling off, not because I’m having a heart attack, or I’m going blind or I’m having seizures and my leg went numb because I’m diabetic and I’m still drinking soft drinks by the gallon. I’m going to my health practitioners because I want to stay healthy. It’s all about prevention, people. Prevention is dirt cheap. So is good nutrition.
A drugged nation can’t think clearly about health
Now, here’s the ironic thing about all of this: No matter what health care reforms they come up with and try to pitch to the public, no matter how ludicrous and insane they may seem, most people will buy into them because half the nation is drugged. I’m not making this up. Half the nation is literally drugged up. They’ve lost mental clarity. They can’t think straight. They can’t make good decisions anymore. They’ve got brain fog side effects from their prescription drugs (like anti-inflammatory drugs).
So, when a politician comes along and says, “We’re going to provide universal health care and cover everybody,” people are going to say, “I’m voting for you!” But they don’t realize what it means. What it means is financial bankruptcy because, again, if you don’t address the health, there is no real solution. We are at a crossroads here in terms of the history of human civilization on this planet. What’s going to happen to this particular nation, the United States of America?
I think that if we had some courage, some honesty and some people who were willing to stand up and tell the truth, we could turn this around. We could ban junk food advertising to children. We could ban dangerous ingredients. We could arrest the criminals at the drug companies and decision makers at the FDA who have deliberately put us in this mess. We could reform the USDA and break the ties between food companies and regulators. There are people in government who have been colluding with the very industries they are supposed to be regulating.
With some major changes in place, in one generation we could have a nation of really healthy and happy children who have the ability to learn well, who are emotionally balanced and who are not predisposed to diseases like schizophrenia, type 2 diabetes, heart disease or obesity. We could have a nation that could get back to doing some good things, some creative things, and a nation that could take a leadership role in the world.
But we’ve got to make that decision now because, if we don’t make that decision, if we go the other way – that is, the way of protecting special interest groups, protecting the corrupt profits of drug companies and keeping the FDA in power so it can continue to exploit public health in order to send more profits to the drug companies – if we make this decision, we keep protecting the politicians that act on the interests of private business instead of protecting the public. If we allow junk food companies to keep marketing to children, if we allow our schools to be infiltrated by all these foods that promote disease and learning disabilities and aggressive behavior in young children, then we are doomed as a nation. We really are. We’re heading down the path of self destruction and we won’t be the first nation to go down in history as one that imploded.
America could fall, simply from bad health
You might recall that the Roman Empire did sort of the same thing. It’s amazing what a bit of heavy metal in the plumbing will do for a city. In the case of ancient Rome, the lead poisoning drove the citizens (and their leaders) mad. But today, instead of poisoning ourselves with lead, we are poisoning ourselves with food additives. We are doing it consciously. We know it’s happening. It isn’t a mystery, but we are allowing it to happen because the special interest groups are running the country; they are arm-twisting these politicians who don’t have the courage to stand up and do what’s right for the people.
If we don’t make some changes fast, we’re going to get past the point of sanity. We may be past that point already. We’re going to get to a point where maybe 60 or 70 percent of the people in this country are diseased and beyond the ability to think. How do you run a democracy when 60 or 70 percent of the people don’t have the presence of mind to even vote rationally? How do you run a democracy like that? Well, you don’t. It’s gone. It’s basically run by the special interest groups, just a few people in power who are acting like it’s a democracy. I think that’s actually where we are today.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we can turn this around, but I don’t see any indication of it. I don’t see any honest discussion of health care reform, do you? Look around out there! We don’t see people talking about health care reform and saying, “We need to address the health: We need to ban dangerous food ingredients. We need to teach people about sunlight and water. We need to educate mothers on how to have good nutrition for their children.” Have you seen any of that going on out there? I haven’t and I’ve been paying attention. I review hundreds of news articles every single week and I haven’t seen a word about this. It’s all about who pays for the drugs.
A nation invested in disease must change from the top down
We are a nation invested in disease. There are so many vested interests in chronic disease that it’s almost impossible to change the system incrementally. You have to really reform this system from the top down. You have to overhaul it; you have to unleash a health care revolution.
All the top Fortune 500 companies out there (and a lot of people’s egos, careers and positions of power) are all invested in disease. Did you know the top ten drug companies in America make more money than the other 490 companies on the Fortune 500 list?
On top of that, you’ve got the American Cancer Society, which is based on cancer. You’ve got the American Diabetes Association, which is based on diabetes. You’ve got drug companies that are counting on the next wave of Alzheimer’s patients and counting on another generation of obese children growing up and consuming these foods so that they’re obese just like their parents are today. They are counting on all of this. They’ve mapped this out and they’re rolling out new, patented drugs to cash in!
So, what happens if you try to challenge this system? Oh boy, you’re in for a ride! You’re going to be discredited. You’re going to be censored. You’re going to be attacked because there’s simply too much money at stake here. Politicians and power brokers are counting on this disease to pay some salaries, make some profit, pocket some cash and to keep them in office because when there’s a health care crisis going on, somebody can always get elected by promising a solution, regardless of whether or not that solution makes any sense.
Any real solution to health care must involve addressing health; any solution that addresses health must challenge the status quo; any solution that challenges the status quo will be viciously attacked by the interests that already hold positions of power and profit in our nation. So, you see how this system is very difficult to change. In fact, if I was a betting man – and I’m not – I would bet that this system’s going to implode. I don’t think we’re going to turn this around.
I think only a few individuals are going to emerge from this with any degree of sanity or health, and those will be the individuals who take charge of their own health, who work outside the system, who find a naturopath, who say no to prescription drugs and who start feeding themselves healing foods and outstanding nutrition. They’ll be parents who take charge of the health of their children and don’t feed them soft drinks and candy bars and who don’t allow them to eat those nutritionally depleted school lunches. These are the people who are going to emerge from this system as being sane, healthy and emotionally balanced.
But the masses will probably never come around to the power of nutrition. If you have a nation of people who are mad (who don’t have fully functioning nervous systems), I don’t think you can last very long in the competitive global marketplace. You’ve got people in India who make top U.S. students seem retarded. You’ve got people in China who work for a fraction of what we work for. You’ve got schools with real quality standards all around the world; meanwhile, in America, we have daycare that we call public education. We’re stuffing our children full of these toxic foods, just to make sure they don’t “misbehave.” You can’t compete like that anymore.
No health discussion = No health care solution
Unless we make some changes and really start talking about the health in health care reform, nothing’s going to change. It will just be the status quo applied to another generation of sorry, suckered Americans who are now chronically diseased just like their parents. To drive this point home, America used to be number one in a lot of things: We used to be number one in information technology and computer programming. We used to be number one in science and math. You know what we’re number one in today? Mental illness. We are the best in the world at driving our population mad. That’s right, mental illness – number one in the world; no one comes close to us. We’re also number one in obesity.
Here in the U.S., we poisoned an entire generation with fast food, sugars and hydrogenated oils. We made sure they never got good nutrition. We drove them mad with violent television programming, violent video games and insane public school systems. We did a good number on those kids, didn’t we? What are we going to do when those kids grow up and they have diseases? What are we going to do then? There’s an estimate out there that says that 100 percent of the population will be diabetic if the current trends continue – just in the next decade or so, 100 percent. Think about that and then think about the real conversation out there about health care reform. Remember, if you don’t address health, any discussion is essentially pointless.
It’s like the captain of a sinking ship arguing about the color of the deck paint.
Now frankly, if the mentally unstable people who run this country were crazy enough to put me in charge of the national health system, oh my, we would have this thing licked in a couple of years. Every pharmaceutical company out there would hate me and the food companies would hate me because I’d make them use nutritious ingredients. I would outlaw those toxic substances that are now added to the food supply (like MSG, aspartame, yeast extract, etc.).
I would make school lunch programs actually serve nutritious food to children. I would ban junk food vending machines. I would have the taxpayers pay for nutritional supplements for all pregnant women because we would save billions of dollars in long-term health care costs by spending PENNIES on nutrition for each expectant mother. I would have some pretty radical ideas that would definitely disturb the status quo. Not surprisingly, we’d end up with a generation of people who are actually healthy.
Wow, imagine that for a change. Drug companies would go out of business. And that’s why they can’t let it happen. That’s why they would never let a guy like me, or even someone with a lot of public health credentials who shared my beliefs, call the shots. It’s just too good. It solves so many problems. It eliminates all these jobs in the health care and disease management industries. It would shrink the pharmaceutical industry. It would shrink the sick care system out there. Hospital beds would go empty.
People would live longer and start collecting more social security because now they’d be living longer. The government would have to pay more money because these people wouldn’t be dying off as they are today. It would cost the government and the pharmaceutical companies money. Gee, the only people that would be better off would be… well… real people! The public would experience happier people, longer lives, greater cognitive function, greater clarity of mind and healthier, happier children. There would be far less disease, more stable mental states and enhanced learning abilities. These are the benefits that would occur.
So, call me a pessimist if you like, but I think I’m actually a realist and an optimist on a personal level. I’m an optimist in my own health and the health of everybody who wants to take responsibility for their own health. And there are many, many people like that. Just don’t expect to hear anything sane or useful from our public health officials or politicians who claim to be solving this health crisis with their ridiculous proposals for health care reform. This is Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, for Truth Publishing.
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August 13th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
I like Anna Churchill’s blog facelift and that first comment by some guy named Marc Cooper is pretty good too.
August 13th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Frankly, Anna, that’s the kind of batshit that makes people think progressives are crazy.
There’s no epidemic of malnutrition going on in the US, and certainly not simultaneous ones of malnutrition and obesity. Nutrient-deficiency diseases are very rare in the US.
There is no widespread epidemic of brain damaged children being born, just a system that encourages diagnoses of diseases like autism more than it did in the past. Some cancers are undoubtedly caused by food additives, but there is no reason to think this is one of the, say, hundred biggest health issues, let alone to claim that cancer would go away if people just ate whatever kind of food this guy is selling. Cancer predates food additives and refined sugar by roughly 500 million years. Cancer rates are higher now than, say, 100 years ago because many fewer people die of infectious diseases. Many of the people who don’t now die of scrofula or cholera end up eventually getting cancer because they are still alive.
It’s much better to have plenty of cheap mass-produced food than to worry about starvation, as the world’s entire population did until a couple of centuries ago, and as many people still do now.
August 13th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Mr X. Your reductive batshit and rationales on how the corporate food biz has saved the world is what is crazy. The mountains of evidence and academic papers on the subject would bury you.
Sell your snake oil elsewhere.
As to your pathetic stats on cancer I can blow those out of the water on just personal anecdotal evidence:
My parents were born in the WW1 years as were most of their friends. 98% of whom all lived into their 80′s. I have no recollection of any of my parents’ friends dropping like flies of cancer– like friends I have had.
You check out the stats and people are now dying EARLIER.
I noticed in the late 80′s that the celebrity or well known obits were all of a sudden showing everyone dropping dead in the 50′s 60′s even 40′s.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to factor in environmental issues that reared up, change in food production etc etc.
You are an idiot.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Huh? We might say all kinds of things about mortality rates, but life expectancy in the US is higher today than at any time in the past. Nutritional standards are only one of many reasons for this (safe drinkng water is certainly the most important) but to claim that there is an epidemic of disease caused by food additives is in truther land. There is just no evidence at all.
Mass food production is the reason why malnutrition is rare and starvation practically unknown in the developed world. Health food is a form of luxury consumption that the rest of the world, and even most people in the west, are unlikely to be able to afford in any foreseeable future timeframe. If all food was priced as if it were sold at Whole Foods, most of the people in the world really would be malnourished.
Call me a paleo-Marxist, but the progressive position is to give the capitalists their props for rationalizing food production and making it vastly more productive than ever before, and then take it over.
August 13th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
I’m not aware of age-corrected data showing people living shorter lives nowadays or having more of any particular disease except, perhaps, diabetes, but even that is questionable because the widespread testing we do nowadays wasn’t so prevalent in the past. As in so many other questions, the issue of health vs diet is a quantitative one — does a little bit of residual pesticide result in any significant increase in the prevalent diseases of aging such as cancer, stroke, or neurological disorder? Again, I know of no evidence suggesting that to be the case. On the other hand, there is a developing body of evidence that connects endocrine disruptors (that wash into the streams and swamps) with some damage to wildlife, and potentially to early human development. That is why the Endocrine Society (a pretty conservative voice, to be sure, on most things) has become involved in the question of what additives should be allowed in plastics manufacturing.
I’m not obsessed with typing onto this blog like some of the regulars, but I would point out that the near-instantaneous trashing of somebody who merely suggests evidence-based thinking regarding diet, well that is unfortunate. My experience with self-styled experts on nutrition is that few of them have ever heard of the glycolytic pathway, much less tried to learn it in a classroom. In the current era, biologists are struggling to sort out the chemical interactions that cells use to regulate their own growth, the growth of neighboring cells, and the physiological processes that we live by. The answers are coming, but they are not here yet.
Shorter version: Anybody who sells plant products for a living and hasn’t spent at least 8 years learning organic chem, biochem, genetics, and intermediary metabolism is recognizable as a charlatan. A rich one perhaps, but a charlatan nevertheless.
August 13th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
OMG, Bob. That is the most pathetic excuse for a comment EVER. Makes Woody seem like a bloody progressive compared to your flat earth sensibility.
“A little pesticide”…???? As if its a seasoning. You are so out of your fucking mind.
Data…how about when my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer in the 90′s while in her 50′s NINE, count em, Bozo, 9, other women she knew also had been diagnosed.
You have your head up your ass, in the sand and are in such denial to reality, the facts and the anecdotal evidence that is there in the 10 people sitting next to you. God. Get a grip on reality, Bob.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
X. You obviously don’t go to the grocery store much to see what a vast majority of people put in their baskets.
A lot of people shun fresh food. Pesticides or GM or not.
A lot of people hardly know what most vegetables are except the most basic.
My next door neighbor lives on cigarettes and Cherry Coke.
And if you don’t think people are dropping dead earlier talk to me in 5 years and tell me how many of your friends are still alive.
There was also a projection that I think its the baby boom generation or the ones after will die younger.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Hey Anna, you can get your own blog for free, which would be appropriate given the amount of stuff you post here.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Marc writes:
August 13th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
sorry, forgot to close the blockquotes… only the first paragraph is from Marc
August 14th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Sure, Americans would be better off if they ate may eat much more fresh fruit and vegetables and much less processed food and meat than is optimal. That’s not anything new, though. People in the west in general eat far *more* fresh food than ever before, but they *also* eat a lot of other stuff.
The very fact that fresh food is available to most of us at almost any time is a *new* thing in history, made possible by cheap, technology-intensive farming, transportation infrastructure, refrigeration, and many other things. People in Scandinavia used to live on lutefisk all winter, for crying out loud. Now they can get vegetables flown in from Chile.
August 14th, 2009 at 5:50 am
correction: this is obvious, but “than is optimal” in my first sentence above is an editing error.
August 14th, 2009 at 7:06 am
A good book on the fat vs. carbs wars- I recommend it to everyone…
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250262271&sr=1-1
August 15th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Hundreds of thousands? Millions? On what planet?
New York City for one.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:49 am
Sorry for the huge review, but I’m really loving the benten, and hope this, as well as the excellent reviews some other people have written, will help you decide if it’s the right choice for you.
October 1st, 2010 at 8:51 am
http://www.thechinaexpat.com/a-shanghainese-view-of-china/
November 24th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
I have tried three times to submit a comment and it won’t take. I have looked through all of the FAQs and still nothing. I’m the owner of the blog and I can’t even submit comments. My readers probably can’t submit comments either.