Tag: Health

What To Look For In Denver

Obama has cast himself as the agent of change and has promised much, but ask yourself if he can truly deliver on what he has said.

These promises are:

1–withdrawal of troops from Iraq

2–to reduce the inequality between the classes

3–Universal healthcare–this will not be a priority in the Obama campaign.

4–a green environmental policy

5–End torture and abuse of civil liberties–but voted for FISA

6–commitment to woman’s rights

7–a more humane immigration policy

8–improving conditions is the urban communities

9–Reform drug laws

10-reform political system

Now you have the major points of the Obama camp.

The Democratic convention itself—a carefully scripted and corporate-funded media extravaganza—is to be the culmination of a systematic shift to the right by the Obama campaign.

In this election, once again, the vast majority of the American people who oppose the war in Iraq and the global escalation of American militarism are to be politically disenfranchised.

The political trajectory of the Obama campaign and the preparations for the reactionary media spectacle to be staged in Denver underscore the impossibility of carrying out any struggle against war, political reaction and the destruction of the living standards and basic rights outside of the independent political mobilization of the working class.

JUst remember you heard it first from the mouth of the Professor.

SCHIP Braces For Cuts

It’s a case of the good news being reported right before the ax falls. Providing children with health insurance makes a huge difference in whether kids receive the care they need, especially if they are chronically ill with such things as asthma or diabetes. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a state-by-state report today, “A Needed Lifeline.” The report was conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota.

Insured children are three times more likely to have visited a doctor’s office in the course of a year than are uninsured children, according to the report. About 60% of insured children are covered by private insurance plans, and about a third of children are covered under public programs, such as Medicaid (MediCal in California) or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The L.A. Times, on Nov. 26, 2007, wrote about how the children’s program can affect even middle-class families. The new report shows that although 41% of chronically ill kids who had no health insurance skipped needed care, only 10% of those covered under public programs skipped needed care.

Last year, a federal directive with an Aug. 18 deadline came down from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that put some aspects of California’s program at risk. For example, some county programs — with federal permission — that have enrolled children in families earning 300% of the federal poverty level may lose that permission for new enrollees. And all newly enrolled children must be uninsured for a year to qualify, according to the new rules. The old rule said they had to be uninsured for only three months before they could be signed up. Yesterday, the state decided not to comply with the new rules, according to CQ Healthbeat, saying that key requirements run counter to California law.

Congress has voted several short-term extensions of the SCHIP program, the most recent to expire in March 2009. But between now and then — you may have noticed — there’s a general election, and state agencies can’t be sure what will happen to programs for uninsured children. On top of that uncertainty, the new CMS rules have just about everyone scratching their heads.

So the SCHIP program, a success story in dropping the number of uninsured children from 11.1 million in 1998 to 7.9 million in 2004, has just received yet more evidence of its value from the new Robert Wood Johnson study. But with the deadline for the new CMS rules just four days away and no one certain how the feds will respond to California’s refusal to comply, with a change in president certain, and possible changes in every other elective office in the land, is it any wonder that states just don’t know what to do about the millions of children who are still uninsured?

Healthcare: The Truth Not Spoken

One of the most important issues in the primaries was that of healthcare, but during the beginning of this general cycle it has sort of slid down the important list behind war and gas prices. It will most like still be a very important issue when the general begins in earnest. Each candidate has their approach and the voter will use which they feel is the best as a benchmark for their support.

Obama’s most likely will be a mandate sort of approach, similar to that of Clinton’s; McCain’s answer will be some sort of tax break with incentives to buy insurance. Both approaches are crap! Neither plan will do anything to ease the financial burden of a major illness. Just delay it.

The prevention method is for the immediate benefit of the insurance companies, not the people it is suppose to help. This approach is supposed to save the people money by making them healthy and in turn less likely to need medical attention. All the programs on smoking and eating and the emphasis on screening and testing are to help the people manage their health. But the people will still be paying the high insurance premiums whether they are healthy or not. So who really benefits there?

The problem with this thinking is that the healthier a person is the longer they live and in doing so will become frail and sickly in their declining years. In those later years the chances of more expensive procedures like hip or knee replacement, extended hospital stays are extremely expensive. The chances of the person getting cancer or Alaheimer’s are pretty high and that is a very expensive medical treatment also.

A prevention program is a lofty and well intended goal, but in the long run there will be NO savings on high priced medical care. Healthier long lives may not be the answer to keeping medical costs down in the long run, just a postponement

Still the only true way to insure that a person, regardless of age, gets the proper medical attention, is a single payer system. It is simple and equal..

Union Backed Health Care Reform Plan

Kip Sullivan wrote about this plan in Labor Notes.

If Barack Obama wins the fall election, he will be under more pressure to establish universal health insurance than any president in U.S. history. This will be due not only to public disgust with the current health care system, but to the hard work of organizations dedicated to universal health insurance.

But the most powerful of these groups, including the AFL-CIO and Service Employees (the major Change to Win health care union) are promoting a solution that won’t fix the problem.

Their plan would fatten the insurance industry and make it an even more formidable opponent of true reform than it already is.

If SEIU and the AFL-CIO get their way, the day that all Americans have affordable insurance will be pushed into the unforeseeable future.

The labor-backed plan, which they call “guaranteed affordable choice,” would create a public program like Medicare that would allegedly compete with the nation’s 1,500 insurance companies. Americans would get tax-financed subsidies to purchase insurance from either a private insurance company or the public plan. Competition, which has never worked in the health insurance industry, would magically come to life.

By leaving the bloated insurance industry smack in the middle of our health care system, “guaranteed affordable choice” would have taxpayers and premium-payers continuing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on unnecessary administrative costs.

US Health Care Not So Healthy

This is a piece that was on WebMD and thought people might like to see that all is not as good as some would have us to believe.

The overall health of the nation’s health system is no better than it was two years ago — and appears to have gotten slightly worse, according to a national scorecard.

The report was published by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit health care think tank that supports universal health coverage.

The scorecard shows that people’s access to insurance continues to slip. Seventy-five million adults of working age (42%) lack health insurance or are uninsured. In 2003, that number was 61 million (35%).

The scorecard grades the U.S. health care system on 37 indicators in five areas of health system performance, including healthy lives and access to insurance and care.

In 2008, nearly every score fell or stagnated from where it was in 2006, according to the Commonwealth Fund. The overall score dropped from 67 in 2006 to 65 in 2008.

The study gets its scores by comparing the U.S. overall with averages in the best-performing states, or in some cases, foreign countries.

It shows a huge jump in the number of people without health coverage, and in the number of people who are exposed to financial ruin because of high health costs and inadequate insurance. Forty-one percent of U.S. adults have “problems” with medical bills or outstanding medical debt, up from 34% two years before. At the same time, around 60% of those people experience financial problems with medical costs despite having health coverage, according to the report.

The report compares the U.S. with other industrialized countries. In most areas, the U.S. does not fare well.

For example, the U.S. death rate (from treatable or preventable conditions such as diabetes and heart disease) before age 75 was 110 per 100,000 people in the total population in 2008. That’s the highest rate among 19 industrialized nations. Several other countries, including Ireland, U.K., and Portugal, were able to drop their early death rates significantly over that time.

American policy makers and voters have shown little interest in adopting a government-run national health system like those seen in other industrialized countries.

The whole wellness thingy is for the benefit of the insurance companies not the actual health of the insured.  The healthier the people the more insurance companies will make.  I say screw the industry I pay, so they pay.  Do not interfer in my life trying to make me feel that it is my fault because of the illness.

Health Care According To The Green Party

Green Party leaders and candidates said today that the health care reform plans offered by Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are designed to benefit insurance and pharmaceutical corporations — including contributors to their own campaigns — rather than American people who need coverage and treatment.

The Green Party and its candidates strongly support the Single-Payer national health care plan, also called Medicare For All (http://www.gp.org/organize/sicko.html).

“Anyone who believes that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will offer real reform in the next administration has been misled by the Democratic Party leadership and their shills in the media. Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama are among the highest recipients of money from insurance firms, HMOs, and drug manufacturers [source: Center for Responsive Politics, http://www.opensecrets.org],” said Jody Grage, treasurer of the Green Party of the United States.

“Except for a handful who are marginalized by their own party, most Democratic candidates are running to prevent real health care reform. They intend to keep control over our health care in the hands of corporate insurance firms and HMOs who make their profits by denying treatment. That’s why over 45 million Americans don’t have health coverage and millions more can’t get the treatment they need even though they have insurance,” said Ms. Grage.

Ms. Clinton’s $110-billion-per-year ‘mandatory coverage’ plan would offer a gigantic subsidy for the HMO-insurance industry, while shifting the burden — and the blame for lack of coverage — onto people who desperately need health care. Mr. Obama rejects the Single-Payer option and has promised that his plan would sustain the HMO and insurance industry.

Greens noted that the 2008 Democratic and Republican national conventions will be funded by numerous corporate sponsors seeking favors from the next White House and Congress (“DNC sponsorships raise questions on motivations,” Rocky Mountain News, March 12, 2008, http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/may/12/dnc-sponsorships-raise-questions-on-motivations/).

The Green Party, which accepts no corporate contributions, will hold its national convention in Chicago, July 10-13 (http://www.greenparty2008.org). The candidates for the Green presidential nomination — Jesse Johnson, Cynthia McKinney, Kent Mesplay, and Kat Swift — all support Single-Payer.

“There’s no incentive for either Democrats or Republicans to pursue real campaign finance reform and get corporate money out of politics and public policy, because they both benefit from the current system. The only way to shock the system and get real reform is by voting for Greens, giving a noncorporate party seats in Congress and state legislatures, and showing the Democrats that they can’t take their seats for granted,” said Bob Kinsey, Colorado Green candidate for the US Senate (http://www.kinseyforsenate.org).

“Greens are the only party with the solution for the health care crisis. Democrats and Republicans have nothing to offer when it comes to health care, except more denial of treatment, more financial ruin for working Americans who suffer a serious emergency, and big bucks for corporate cronies,” Mr. Kinsey added.

The Single-Payer/Medicare For All would guarantee every American health care regardless of age, income, employment, or prior medical condition; allow choice of health care provider; provide low-cost or no-cost treatment and prescriptions (including complementary and alternative medicine); and cost low- and middle-income Americans far less than they now pay for private or employer-based coverage by eliminating insurance and HMO company overhead. To contact Green health care leaders in the Green Party Speakers Bureau, visit (http://gp.org/speakers/healthcare.shtml).

Want Universal Health Care?

Here’s a cold truth: Despite much media hand-wringing on the subject, most of us give about as much thought to those who lack health coverage as we do to soybean subsidies.The major obstacle to change? Those of us with insurance simply don’t care very much about those without it. It’s only when health care costs spike sharply, the economy totters or private employers begin to cut back on benefits that the lack of universal health care comes into focus. Noticing the steadily growing ranks of the uninsured, the broad American public — “us” — begins to worry that we’ll soon be joining the ranks of “them.”

The reality, however, is that only a minority of the uninsured are either the typical Redbook reader or that nice shopkeeper down the street. Two-thirds of those without health insurance are poor or near poor, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And there are clear disparities in how different racial and ethnic groups are affected. Only 13 percent of non-Hispanic white Americans is uninsured, compared with 36 percent of Hispanics, 33 percent of Native Americans, 22 percent of blacks and 17 percent of Asians/Pacific Islanders.

Politicians understand what this means in practical terms. If a lack of health insurance were truly a white middle-class crisis, then conservatives and liberals would long ago have joined together, carved out a compromise and done something. Instead, we’re served a constantly recycled set of excuses for legislative stalemate.

It has been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican running unsuccessfully on the Bull Moose Party ticket, boldly became the first presidential candidate to promise universal health coverage. That was in 1912. Nearly a century later, we’re still waiting for a leader with the courage and skill to break through our fears and successfully lead the charge up that particular hill.

Health Care, Unions And Washington

Passing universal health care will be the #1 priority of 
Senate Labor Committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) next year, 
regardless of who wins the White House this fall, the senator promised.
In a rousing speech Feb. 6 to the United Auto Workers’ legislative-political 
conference, Kennedy said “you’ve sacrificed wages and benefits to get health 
care. U.S. senators and federal employees get 200 options for their health 
care,” as does GOP President George W. Bush, he noted. And taxpayers pick up 73% 
of the cost.
“If that’s good enough for the president and the Republicans” who denounce 
universal health care “as socialism” but take advantage of it if they’re in 
Congress or the executive branch, “it’s good enough for the UAW” and workers, 
Kennedy declared.
“I’m going to assure you that no matter who wins the presidency, health care 
will be #1 on my agenda,” he concluded, to prolonged applause.
Health care was also a top topic on the agenda of the 1,000 conference delegates, who took time 
out from their meetings to lobby their lawmakers.
“We can’t do this by ourselves,” Gettelfinger said after his Feb. 4 keynote 
address to the delegates, referring to U.S. auto workers’ and companies’ 
handicaps in competition with foreign automakers. “How can we compete when South 
Korea brings in 700,000 vehicles a year to the U.S. and we have a closed market 
(of) 7,000 vehicles to them, and Japan has a closed market? And we’ve got to do 
something about health care, if we are to fix our problems” in the auto 
industry.
The UAW strongly backs government-run single-payer health care, based on 
Medicare and eliminating the insurance companies, their high co-pays and 
deductibles and denial of care. But the sole presidential hopeful who backed 
single-payer health care, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) is now out of the race. 
Rising numbers of union locals and state federations back single-payer, however.
Other topics on the UAW delegates’ roster included campaigning against future ‘free trade’
 treaties, notably the one 
Gettelfinger cited with South Korea, as well as the one with Colombia, where 
Right Wing “paramilitaries” have murdered 2,000 unionists. 
While Kennedy said health care would be his top topic regardless of who is in 
the White House, Gettelfinger made it clear in the interview that for the UAW, 
the White House favorite will be a Democrat and not be Sen. John McCain 
(R-Ariz.). “We can’t live with him,” Gettelfinger said, adding only current 
anti-worker GOP President George W. Bush is worse. He said no GOPer polled above 
single digits in UAW surveys.

The Economy will be the number 1 issue in the upcoming general election.  Just how 
to stop the hemorrhaging of money, the next important issue will be health care and 
it looks like the UAW and Sen. Kennedy will turn it into the major issue, it should
be. We will see if the new president is as serious as he/she was on the campaign trail.

How To Pay For Universal Health Care?

This is one idea to consider.

How would free education and free medical care be paid for? Right now, each year billions of dollars go into the pockets of already wealthy capitalists. That’s one source of money to pay for these changes. Right now much of our tax dollars go to making repayments on the national debt, billions of dollars a year, and this is another source of money—if the banks and other financial institutions are nationalized, then the democratic political structure can rationally decide on realistic repayment options and interest rates, freeing up much of this money for public benefits. Another source is that, contrary to the common claim that private business can do everything cheaper, many things can be done more cheaply by government, by pooling resources, by maximizing economies of scale, by eliminating unnecessary paperwork. Before you guffaw, since government right now causes much unnecessary paperwork, let me point to a program that works well. In Washington State, the state provides worker’s compensation benefits—provides the insurance for workplace injuries. Private insurance companies, on top of their profits, run about 20% administrative costs. Since they are banned from operating in the state (except for large employers who can set up their own programs under certain conditions), and the state thus covers everyone, they keep the administrative costs to about 2%! In years when the state’s investments are paying well, the program has actually returned money to the state treasury, since there are no profits and since administrative/paperwork costs are so low. No doubt many government programs don’t work this way, but it is possible, especially when they are not set up to provide profits to the private sector. This is another source of billions.

There are no easy answers to this problem.  However, none of the candidates from either party is offering “universal” health care.  Some try to paint it as so but it is not universal.

Health Care And McCain

All the candidates for president have seen the importance of the issue of health care.  The Dems have their ways of handling the issue, but the Repubs, especially McCain have come up with the most ridiculous.  McCain’s proposal is a typical conservative approach some type of tax credit or such.

To do so he is proposing a major tax change that he hopes will make the insurance marketplace more competitive and less expensive in part by encouraging more people to buy health insurance on their own instead of receiving it from their employers.

The 71 percent of insured Americans who get their health coverage through their employers now enjoy a significant advantage because the money spent by employers on their health coverage is excluded from their taxable income. If employers chose to pay that share of a worker’s compensation as wages rather than benefits, the income would be taxable.

The tax treatment of health benefits has been criticized as both discriminatory and regressive, and some analysts believe it encourages workers to buy more coverage than they need, driving up health costs.

To end the disadvantage to those who do not buy insurance through employers, Mr. McCain proposes to eliminate the exclusion of health benefits from taxable income. In exchange, he would provide refundable tax credits of $2,500 to single people and of $5,000 to families, with the goal of stoking competition in the individual insurance market. The elimination of the exclusion would generate $3.6 trillion over 10 years, according to the McCain campaign, and that money would pay for the tax credits.

This free market approach is not the answer to the lack of adequate health care.  On the other hand, neither Dem candidate has an adequate either.