France or America, Who is Calling Who Socialist?

Roger Cohen, who I gather spends a lot of time in France, wrote an interesting article in the New York Times a couple days ago. By his accurate perspective, the US and France actually are more similar than dissimilar.

Most (French) would be shocked to hear about American social security, let alone Medicare and Medicaid, the government-run health care systems for the elderly and the poor that together form one of the largest publicly financed health systems in the world.

Americans obsess less about France than vice-versa but when they do they tend to suffer from equally delusional ideas. The French — like many Europeans — loom as a feckless multitude coddled by a nanny state that’s so big it must be socialist.

In fact, ever since President Mitterrand tried broad nationalizations in the early 1980s with catastrophic results, France, like most of Europe, has been on a steady march toward freer markets, trade and competition. In its way, it has been Americanizing.

Both we and the French really know very little about the other, although ignorance doesn't seem to get in the way of our loudly voiced opionions of the other. The two countries actually have more in common than not.

Read the entire article here.

Finally! Health Insurance Simplified!

Finally! Health Insurance Simplified!

Alec MacGillis, in todays Washington Post, explains the Health Care conundrum in 1,300 words of clarity that our politicians have failed to explain in 1,000 pages of confusion. His article Your Handy Health Care Cheat Sheet, is excellent, honest and sticks to the facts. There may be devils in the solution, but the problem is elementary, my dear citizen.

Health Care now devours 16% of our economy. Insurance rates spiral beyond the cost of a house. Soon premiums will explode beyond the budgets of even the wealthy; Affordable only by the super rich or as benefits to senior government employees, politicians and retired Presidents. It will be necessary to reverse laws that requiring hospital treatment to all who enter. There just won't be enough money.

But, you say, the United States has the best health care in The World! Absolutely true. We do have the best health care available. Available to World Leaders, Drug Dealers, Despots, Financial Barons, Dictators, US Politicians, Russian Oligarchs and the rest of the Mega Yacht Crowd who pay outrageous bills with minivans stuffed full of cash, government checks or premier insurance policies costing $3,000 - $5,000 per month. Our puny Blue Cross, Kaiser and Cigna policies won't even get us past their security details. What's in your wallet, citzen?

The World Health Organization, who studies these sorts of things, ranks the United States 37th in overall health care, just above Cuba. In overall health we rank 71st, earning us a seat at the back of the Third World Club. Compared to our peer countries, we live 5 years less and 5 times as many of our babies die before their 1st Birthday. 280% more of us are unable to earn a living because of repairable disabilities. Compared to the #1 ranked French, we pay almost twice as much of our GNP to treat 47% of our citizens as the French pay to treat 100% of theirs. Are the French smarter? Or is it something in the wine?

Something must be done.....about 25 years ago. Every day there is news of cures for disease and body repair; All the nasty things that shortened our ancestors lives is on the run. Within the next 50 years, the super rich will be living healthy, active and alert lives well past 100. Why? Because they can afford it. You and I, citizen, will be dropping dead from simple curable diseases or dieing from minor injuries before we hit 40. The last time people lived such meager lives was over a thousand years ago during the Dark Ages when the prescribed cure for everything, except heresy, was bleeding by leeches. You think I'm rattling off science fiction nonsense? Wait and see. We don't need no stinking Death Panels. We'll do it for ourselves.

Something must be done. I am not urging you to support, or not support, Obamacare. I am urging you to read Alec MacGillis's article. and consider the best and smartest course of action that makes sense to you. Keep in mind, citizen, we live in a Democracy, and our fellow passengers also have places they want to go and some mighty peculiar ideas about how to get there. But, holding the present course will soon bring us upon the Shoals of Status Quo and we will be smashed into 300 million pieces. Obamacare may be the best solution or just another bad idea. It may be the first wobbly leg in the right direction. Or not.

But, all this silliness about Death Panels, granny killing, Nazis, funny hats and missing Birth Certificates must go, replaced by serious dialog. The voices of those standing up, yelling passionate nonsense, must be joined by our own voices speaking passionate common sense. We don't have to agree on a solution today, but we must commit to a solution tomorrow.

Once we consent on a true course the trick will be to keep our politicians running the course we have set them. Simple folk, these politicians, can't help rowing in crazy circles without an occasional taste of the whip lash from us, their leaders. After all, they already have the really really good insurance...for free.

Think about it, citizen.

Death Panels? They're already here.

I'm getting a little tired of hearing about Death Panels under any possible under the proposed insurance reform. First, anybody who is talking about Death Panels under any version of the proposed insurance reforms either is just passing along information they have heard without fact checking or they are trying to manipulate peoples opinions by knowingly passing on false facts.

But, with the above in mind, who are we kidding? Every health insurance company, cooperative or government program including medicare already has a Death Panel. What else would you call the policy makers who develop policies that refuse applicants for any reason, deny a procedure, cancel a policy, raise premiums or, in any way, limit a participants treatment. They are already deciding who gets what and to what limit.

People do actually die because of these policies. If that is not a death panel, then what is? The only way to avoid these Death Panels is to provided unlimited coverage to 100% of the people, including illegal immigrants for free. As long as one person is being told what they can and can't have somebody else is deciding their fate. Even the politicians who deny 100% coverage for everybody are enforcing a policy that results in death.

A Very Excellent Primer on Health Care Reform

Complicated and Confusing. That is the status of pending Health Care Legislation. Todays New York Times has just published an excellent Primer on who the players are, what's true and what's not. This article will get you back up to speed.

Indeed, What Has Private Insurance Done For Us?

I usually try to write for myself. In fact yesterday I wrote a bit about the evil ways of private insurance. But when somebody says exactly what I wanted to say and says it better, I yield the floor. So, please read Michael Hiltziks' piece in todays Los Angeles Times. This piece is Spot On.

What's So Great About Private Health Insurance?

The firms take billions of dollars out of the U.S. healthcare wallet as profits, while imposing enormous administrative costs on doctors, hospitals, employers and patients. They've introduced complexity into the system at every level. Your doctor has to fight them to get approval for the treatment he or she thinks is best for you. Your hospital has to fight them for approval for every day you're laid up. Then they have to fight them to get their bills paid, and you do too.

Pelosi: Health Insurance Companies The Real "Villains"

Forget the Blue Dogs, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday. The real "villains" in the fight for health care reform are insurance companies.

"They are the villains in this. They have been part of the problem in a major way," Pelosi said of the insurance industry after her weekly press conference. "It's almost immoral, what they are doing," she said, referring to industry lobbying against a public insurance plan option. "Of course, they've been immoral all along. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening, and the public has to know about it."

The current system works so well for insurers that they don't even want subsidies, Pelosi claimed. "They've had a good thing going for a long time at the expense of the American people and the health of our country," she said, adding that it will be tough to keep them from getting their way. "This is the fight of our lives."

Read the rest of this article

Todays Cartoon