Everything Southern Humboldt and more
This could become a lead story in a few months.
Meanwhile, Obamacare is moving closer to full throttle, for what it’s worth. My last caller on the radio the other night presented a very optimistic assessment of the law, and I wanted to believe him, just as I would love to join the optimism of this Kos poster.
Do you think national single payer is inevitable?
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8 comments
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January 22, 2012 at 12:25 pm
HUUFC
Why on earth are they wasting time on single payer, the state is broke, there is no money, good grief.
January 22, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Mitch
Wow. Can you help those of us who aren’t political junkies get some sense of whether getting out of committee means this has a good chance?
January 22, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Jane Fish
The inevitability depends. How long can you run a society where the bulk of the lower classes lose any collected wealth in their last two decades of life when families try to ease the pain and passing of loved ones. Generational wealth is denied in these populations and institutionalizes poverty in families the same as passing tax free wealth down in the top elite families restores nobility and a sense of privileged without the need for public service.
When human beings work for minimum wage, without benefits, get sick and miss work (unpaid), and then can’t afford healthcare how long will it take before the unrest begins? On top of that fact by cutting and restricting, the budgets, austerity falls harder on these classes, and there will no longer be room in the emergency rooms either.
It is a pretty ugly recipe. Then there is raising minimum wage to living wages and give people the means to purchase private health care or raise taxes and subsidize private healthcare endlessly to support the uninsured (both do the same actually and transfer any added wealth to the “common people” into the hands of the medical and pharma industries). These two are pretty dead end options politically. A single payer system is much more simple, effective, and has been done and done well in other countries.
Of course there is always just letting the modern slaves die but unfortunately in our modern era the “slaves” have a universal instantaneous voice to rally the troops once they are sick of the conservative austerity movement to return to neo-feudalism. The Internet.
Not a pretty time to be sitting on the shifting seat of political power.
January 22, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Eric Kirk
Mitch – yes, it means it has a good chance.
January 22, 2012 at 8:47 pm
Sally
I don’t know if it’s inevitable, but I’d sure like to see it be an option. In the recent years, since losing Dr. Mark Phelps at out community clinic, I’ve had a very difficult time dealing with my health care. Dr. Mark was a GP, but he was also a skilled surgeon, and seemed to keep abreast of multiple areas of diagnosis. One of the things he helped me out with in the past was skin cancer. Even though I’m a member of the “working poor”, with no insurance, and ineligible for MedicAid, Dr. Mark, and our local clinic, could take care of all of my needs, and rewarded me with a discount, for being “private pay/no insurance”… for paying upfront, on the day of service. In the years since Mark has been gone, no one at the clinic can diagnose or deal with my skin cancer. The clinic looked at me a few months ago, and sent a “referral” to a Doctor in Eureka. That doctor’s office never contacted me. I double-checked with our Garberville clinic, to make sure that the protocol was to wait for that doctor in Eureka to contact me first, and they said yes. Weeks more went by, with no contact. I finally scheduled an appointment with a doctor in San Francisco, to take care of my skin cancer. They gave me a discount for being “private pay/uninsured.” My surgery is done, and the doctor is an acclaimed surgeon, so the stitches he did will probably not leave an ugly scar. My mom, who lives in Fortuna, and has the best insurance in the world, due to her retirement benefits, had a similar surgery a few months ago. The price tag was much higher, and MediCare and BlueCross fought over what to approve, and cover. The craziest thing is that, when my mom looked at her old bills, to compare them with mine, she noticed huge charges that she did not understand. Single-payer sounds like a way to perhaps simplify things. We do not need a dozen middle-men making bets on our healthcare!
January 23, 2012 at 8:24 am
Mitch
Fact sheet on SB810: http://www.healthcareforall.org/documents/SB%20810%20Fact%20Sheet%203_14_11.pdf
The bill: http://info.sen.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=sb_810&sess=CUR&house=B%20&site=sen
It sounds wonderful. I’m surprised it’s been so quiet, but maybe I just haven’t been paying attention.
January 23, 2012 at 8:36 am
Erasmus
Good luck, Californians —- may you follow Vermont along the path to an egalitarian, simplified health care system. My instincts,however, tell me that the current budget woes, coupled with the fact that too many players in the present health care set-up benefit enormously, make major change unlikely. Are you aware of the average income of a specialist MD? Does the leverage of the pharmaceutical corporations allow for a lowering of drug prices? — As I said: my sincere best wishes. But it’s a long road to hoe.
January 23, 2012 at 8:49 am
Mitch
Erasmus,
Take a look at the chart of doctors vs. administrators in the fact sheet I linked. That chart could sell it.