This American can't afford routine dental care much less those shining white veneers sported by the blowviator class.
So they listen to John McMoron wax eloquent on who's rich in America--the five million dollar a year and over class, and they get even angrier.
This American quite frankly doesn't give a rat's ass about what's-his-name and his eight Olympic gold medals.
This is a middle class American, in the nation's largest city, New York. This is an American who needs to see a dentist, but hey, he can't afford to do so.
This is an American for whom dental care is a long forgotten luxury.
I've been asked to explain to Daily Kos readers what's happening and ask you to support single-payer healthcare in the United States by signing the petition to MoveOn.
This morning Paul Krugman writes about health care in the New York Times.
He asks: Can it happen here?
That he must pose such a question is chilling.
That we as a nation continue to have a discussion which revolves around the concept of whether a human being in pain is entitled to be relieved of his suffering is horrifying.
Millions With Chronic Disease Get Little to No Treatment
Millions of Americans with chronic disease like diabetes or high blood pressure are not getting adequate treatment because they are among the nation’s growing ranks of uninsured.
A National Study of Chronic Disease Prevalence and Access to Care in Uninsured U.S. Adults (Annals of Internal Medicine)That is the central finding of a new study to be published Tuesday in the medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
What follows will help you understand how and why your health insurance claims are routinely and regularly denied, and why they must be denied for our for-profit system to thrive.
I'm going to take you inside one company, TC3 Total Claims Capture and Control which functions solely to deny and underpay health insurance claims. Remember a denied claim goes right to the bottom line.
The insurance industry in the United States has a single purpose, to provide a stream of profits to shareholders who own the stock of healthcare companies. Guaranteeing the healthcare needs of the American people is not even an afterthought. Our private, for-profit insurance industry is a huge, sophisticated and dangerous denial machine.
The first concept you need to understand is the Medical loss ratio. You and I are losses in insurance industry lingo.
Today is the 45th anniversary of Medicare. Don't take Medicare for granted, there are forces in this country determined to destroy it.
Now glance at your mother or your aging father or your grandmother or grandfather and imagine a world without Medicare.
If you're lucky, you too will get old . . .
On July 30 1965, with Harry Truman by his side, Lyndon Johnson signed the legislation creating Medicare.
Johnson told the nation that it had "all started with the man from Independence." Harry S. Truman, Johnson said, had "planted the seeds of compassion and duty" that led to the enactment of Medicare, a national health insurance for the aged through an expanded Social Security system.
Medicare, provides low-cost hospitalization and medical insurance for the nation's elderly. The legislation remains a a landmark legacy of LBJ’s "Great Society" initiative.
This is not idle chatter. This is real. This is a stunning and profound indictment of the U.S. healthcare system. These are the words of Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a doctor who treats patients every day.
Some of us less diplomatic than Dr. Woolhandler, call what she's describing, pay or die.
In June, Dr. Woolhandler, a Harvard Medical School physician and one of the great heroes of the single-payer movement in the United States, was invited to appear before The President's Council on Bioethics.
The Council was created in 2001 to "advise" the President "on bioethical issues that may emerge as a consequence of advances in biomedical science and technology".
We can hope that President Obama will listen to those like Dr. Woolhandler--the people on the front lines of the tattered remains of our healthcare system.
No wonder we call this guy, McSame. How about McEvenWorse?
I spent the morning reviewing some video clips of McSame's appearance at the Lance Armstrong Cancer Summit.
It's a treasure trove. The entire event should inspire fear in the hearts of all Americans. The one I selected shows just how absolutely clueless this man is.
It's a huge blooper, could be another senior moment, I don't know:
But this time, he was alone, there was no Joe Lieberman to whisper in his ear. McSame doesn't have a clue about the economy, Iraq, Sunni, Shia, the Anbar Awakening--now add to the McSame catalogue of cluelessness, the collapse of the U.S. healthcare system.
Things are not going well on the AHIP - America's Health Insurance Plans (we feel your pain) tour of our battered nation.
Karen Ignagni the CEO of the health insurance lobbyist AHIP was taped yesterday in Ohio.
Ms. Ignagni carefuly explained that profit is the guiding principle of AHIP, the for-profit insurance industry, and tragically, the entire U.S. healthcare system.
She says, "no margin, no mission".
This is a bad day for AHIP, because their leader/CEO, Karen Ignagni, told the truth, probably for the first time in her life.
Isn't the first rule of politics, don't tell the truth? Well, she fumbled, badly.
Take a listen. I've provided a decent transcript of some of the tape.
In a couple of hours, the insurance industry will roll out its shameless campaign of deceit in Columbus, Ohio.
And what exactly does bold faced deceit look like? Like this.
How do these liars sleep at night?
It is delivered to the American people courtesy of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). I haven't a clue why they've selected Columbus, but this is the venue where the despicable conning of America circa 2008 will begin. Think of this as Harry and Louise 2.0
This is a very dangerous con job--Al Capone would blush. Even he couldn't cook up something this atrocious. We should gawk, hiss, scream and not allow a second of their deliberate deceit to go unchallenged. That said, we underestimate the survival instinct of the insurance industry at our own peril. The message for today though is AHIP is literally off and rolling. The battle has begun.
Hello from Netroots Nation in the Lone Star State, Austin Texas.
I'm sitting in the beautifully air conditioned lobby of the Austin Hilton. The lobby here is a sea of bloggers and computers. There's free internet access and clusters of very comfortable arm chairs, so as you might imagine, we've turned it into one huge living room.
But despite all the noise and activity, lots of us are hard at work.
Here's the big news on the healthcare front. I just received an email from Mike Dundas the chief health care deputy city attorney in Rocky Delgadillo's office. Mike wanted to let me know that Rocky's office (The Los Angeles City Attorney), has filed a lawsuit against Blue Shield of California as part of the ongoing investigation regarding retroactive recission of health insurance policies.
And the great news is that Rocky Delgadillo will be at Netroots Nation on the health policy panel. Please join us, Saturday, July 19 Ballroom G at 10:30.
If you can join us on Saturday, July 19. 10:30 - 11:45 - Ballroom G, a warning: when it's over, you're going to be as angry as you've ever been. We're going to rattle your cages. You'll hear from people who won't shield you from the grim realities of our hopelessly broken healthcare system.
You'll also hear about what we, the netroots, will have to do going forward to get the authentic healthcare reform we so desperately need. If there's one take home message it's this, electing Obama is just the beginning.
You know me, I've been sounding the alarm for years, now others who have been touched, or harmed, or professionally horrified by our healthcare system in one way or the other, will talk and bear witness.
To say I'm honored to be involved with making this happen is the understatement of all time.
Here's the line up.
Hilda Sarkisyan, yes, Nataline's mother. I've met this courageous woman. Her pain is raw, her anguish is unbearable, yet she is determined to take this terrible tragedy and turn it into a means of exposing the terrible brutality of the for-profit health insurance industry.
Why is a group of top notch, progressive Americans waving the white flag of surrender before the first shot is fired in what will be a take-no-prisoners battle of historic dimension?
We're talking about the looming healthcare battle.
We're talking about a very simple concept. Bringing healthcare in the United States up to the same standard as the rest of the civilized world.
Healthcare for all. Guaranteed and affordable healthcare. Single-payer healthcare. Call it what you want.
Our friends at HCAN, and they are our friends, should know better. But I guess they don't.
Oh, and before I go any further, dear friends at HCAN and MoveOn, you don't go into battle with one arm tied behind your back.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is a part of the United States Bill of Rights that expressly prohibits the United States Congress from making laws "respecting an establishment of religion" (the Establishment Clause) or that prohibit free exercise of religion (the Free Exercise Clause), laws that infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to peaceably assemble, or limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Before I tell you about the crushing healthcare burdens destroying Americans of every socioeconomic level, I hope those of you too young to remember, will take a look at this video about how my generation changed the course of a nation.
THURSDAY NIGHT IS HEALTH CARE CHANGE NIGHT, a weekly Daily Kos Health Care Series
I've been asked to write a "patriotic July 4th" healthcare diary by the organizers of the Thursday night healthcare series.
What follows is how I see our nation on the eve of July 4th, 2008.
Patriotism is not picnics, fireworks, or a long weekend.
Patriotism is not simply showing up to vote. You don't change a nation at the ballot box alone.
Patriots fight for the voiceless. And in 2008 in the United States, the voiceless has become just about the entire population.
Scenes from an American horror movie:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
But like so many, you're hanging in because in a few years, you'll be eligible for Medicare.
Help has arrived.
Finally, as a Medicare beneficiary and citizen of the richest country on the planet, you'll be able to access healthcare. You'll finally pay a modest premium to receive that long deferred healthcare.
You'll be enrolled in Medicare, one of our most cherished social programs, a program designed to protect the most vulnerable among us, America's senior citizens.
In an ocean of sobering reports on the collapse of the U.S. healthcare system, this just released report from The Center for Studying Health System Change, is among the most horrifying I've seen.
Falling Behind: Americans' Access to Medical Care Deteriorates, 2003-2007
The number and proportion of Americans reporting going without or delaying needed medical care increased sharply between 2003 and 2007, according to findings from the Center for Studying Health System Change’s (HSC) nationally representative 2007 Health Tracking Household Survey. One in five Americans—59 million people—reported not getting or delaying needed medical care in 2007, up from one in seven—36 million people—in 2003. While access deteriorated for both insured and uninsured people, insured people experienced a larger relative increase in access problems compared with uninsured people.
Some of you know that last Thursday, June 19th was a nationwide day of action against the for-profit health insurance industry.
I was in San Francisco where AHIP was holding its annual convention.
I marched with the heroes from the California Nurses Association. CNA took the lead in organizing the protests nationwide.
The protests began on Wednesday, June 18th outside the Moscone center. We had a press conference with Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, Hilda Sarkisyan (who, I'm thrilled to let you know will be at Netroots Nation as a panelist on the health policy panel--I'll tell you more about that in another diary), Rick Colombo, the father of Nick Colombo and many others.
