Sick

The great Paul Krugman takes Dubya to the woodshed: Now, why should Mr. Bush fear that insuring uninsured children would lead to a further "federalization" of health care, even though nothing like that is actually in either the Senate plan or the House plan? It's not because he thinks the plans wouldn't work. It's because he's afraid that they would. That is, he fears that voters, having seen how the government can help children, would ask why it can't do the same for adults. And there you have the core of Mr. Bush's philosophy. He wants the public to believe that government is always the problem, never the solution. But it's hard to convince people that government is always bad when they see it doing good things. So his philosophy says that the government must be prevented from solving problems, even if it can. In fact, the more good a proposed government program would do, the more fiercely it must be opposed. This sounds like a caricature, but it isn't. The truth is that this good-is-bad philosophy has always been at the core of Republican opposition to health care reform. Thus back in 1994, William Kristol warned against passage of the Clinton health care plan "in any form," because "its success would signal the rebirth of centralized welfare-state policy at the very moment that such policy is being perceived as a failure in other areas." But it has taken the fight over children's health insurance to bring the perversity of this philosophy fully into view. There are arguments you can make against programs, like Social Security, that provide a safety net for adults. I can respect those arguments, even though I disagree. But denying basic health care to children whose parents lack the means to pay for it, simply because you're afraid that success in insuring children might put big government in a good light, is just morally wrong.

Another Michael Moore Fan Is Born

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge I saw Moore on Wolf Blitzer last night and what a show! Moore didn't give Blitzer any place to run and hide, but above and beyond the issue of SiCKO, I think Mike was speaking for the rest of us. "Where has the mainstream media been?" The string of lies and obstruction of justice for this White House goes all the way back to before BushCo took the oath of office (he even broke that in no time) and the MSM is now just starting to crack its eyes open and ask a hard question or two. With the exception of Lou Dobbs and Keith Olbermann, the media continues to chat about mostly nothing. Here is something to think about. Take all of what I have said and all you have seen from this administration, take the malpractice of the mainstream media for the last 6 and a half years - take it all in and thin about it. Now imagine life and this culture WITHOUT blogs. What would you have? How hard of a life would we be living? Without the constant watchdogs in the blogosphere, what more would BushCo have gotten by with? How much farther would they have gotten without us? Would we know about the secret prisons, non-existent WMDs, Abu Ghraib, Walter Reed, no bid contracts, Gonzo Gate? What about Katrina? Would we even know about Michael Moore?

SiCKO - A ReVIEW

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing click to enlarge My wife and I went to see SiCKO this past Sunday at the 1:30 matinée. The crowd was thin, but it was just as crowded as the theater showing Die Hard. The film was different from other Michael Moore works as it focused on an issue without a single-person focus such as Roger Smith, George Bush or Charlton Heston - this film had a lot of stars and a lot of sad stories and all of them were tear jerkers. Moore targeted an industry and did it well while managing to crucify both Democrats and Republicans for taking bribes (I call them that) from the health care titans of industry. My favorite guy was the philosophical older British gentleman who spoke on the power of democracy and I think he made one of the greatest points of the film. Democracy moves the power of government from the rich to the poor and if the poor ever feel disenfranchised, they stop voting - so it is in the interest of the rich to disenfranchise. Leave it to the British to sum up our voting problems here in the former colonies. Two of the most emotional moments for me were both scenes from Cuba. One of the women who worked on The Pile had severe respiratory problems resulting from her exposure to Ground Zero. Her disability check was about $1000 a month and just one of her inhalers ran close to $100 each - in Cuba, she learned the inhalers were five cents. You could see the pain and elation on her face when she learned the price difference. The other was a woman who had cancer and lost her house due to medical bills. Once she was in her hospital bed, she expressed her gratitude and her utter disbelief over the cost of her treatment - free. You could see her relief of being helped and her frustration of her American health car experience - murder-by-spreadsheet. What the fuck is wrong with us? And lastly, in the beginning of the film, where the parents had to move in with their daughter - would it have KILLED the daughter to at least clean up with room where she stuffed her parents? After all, her Dad has had THREE hear attacks and her mother had cancer (mentioned previously). Hadn’t they been through enough without you dumping then in your cramped, junk-filled storeroom?

Brits and their snooty healthcare!

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane & My Left Wing click to enlarge I had the opportunity to have dinner with a living, breathing human who was a product of socialized medicine, otherwise known as the English Bloke. Once a month, my car club gets together for a dinner and since it is a British car club, well, Brits attend. Usually we sing the glories of boots and bonnets, wings and sills but last night we chatted about socialized medicine. According to him, anyone can get free medical care. He had a relative that fell off the top of his house and broke his hip. He had a replacement hip that night. Grand total? Nada. But if your hip was wearing out and needing replacing due to wear, it may take three months to get that done. Which was the two months shorter than what my Grandmother got here in the US with damn fine health insurance. Plus she had a huge bill afterward, plus a stroke during surgery (more cash) and some of the physical therapy wasn't covered. Our cost? Close to $10k with a 60 day longer wait. The other issue that BushCo never brings up about socialized medicine is you can still have insurance. In Britain, most employers offer supplemental private insurance ON TOP of the regular socialized medical care. Think AFLAC. Bottom line is this - Britain's National Health Service provides regular check-ups, emergency services and in-home care for free. Emergency things like broken bones, pediatric fevers and other issues like cancer that need immediate care gets immediate attention. Things that are not immediate medical threats like joint replacement, male pattern baldness and erectile dysfunction you will need to make an appointment, just like in the US. Visit the NHS site or line up to watch SiCKO in the upcoming weeks. Either way, take a few minutes to leanr how much you are really being lied to about healthcare.