Obamacare is a Giveaway to Corporatism

Here is a video series that I made back in November of 2009

My take on the Affordable Care Act

So now that the Affordable Care Act is being discussed by the Supreme Court, these videos from 2009 are relevant again.

PART 1:


PART 2:


PART 3:


PART 4:

Congress Watch News: What *IS* Universal Healthcare?

I made this video in 2009 as part of a failed venture called "Congress Watch News."

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[INFOGRAPHIC] Unaffordable Health Insurance

Created by: Medical Billing and Coding Certification

Vermont: We're doing Single Payer!

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Cassandra Bangs on Single Payer Healthcare

Visit Cassandra Bangs's Youtube channel here.

She's totally right.

SIX TIMES the number of people who died on 9/11 die EVERY GODDAMN YEAR from preventable or curable illness, here in America, the richest fucking country in the world.

There are two Americas: One America is a place where the rich get whatever the fuck they want.
The other America is a third world shithole where kids die of diseases left over from the Great Gatsby days, like scarlet fever and tuberculosis. Where people still get the fucking BUBONIC PLAGUE.

Six times the number of people who died on 9/11 die every fucking year from preventable or curable illness, and if you are opposed to universal single payer healthcare-- you're a fucking murderer.

Obama: Worse than Bush?

With Bush, at least liberals and DNC apologists knew that the person in the White House was trying to fuck us over.

So today, February 13th, it’s been reported in the AP, that an administration official says that Barack Obama is proposing to cut $100 billion over ten years from Pell Grants.

What happened to the state of the union?  What happened to “investing in our future?”  How is it that Barack Obama is still being supported by Democrats, liberals, and progressives? 

Well, here’s how this is all going to go down:

First, actual progressives are going to raise a red flag and say, “WHAT THE FUCK?!  THIS IS BULLSHIT!”

Second, the conservatives with step in and say, “OBAMA ISN”T GOING FAR ENOUGH! WE need to cut pell grants entirely.  Let the free market decide who needs an education and who doesn’t.”

Third, with this new conservative foil to play against, mindless DNC apologists are going to step into the fray and defend Obama and thus defend these massive cuts to college education. They’ll try to tell you that it’s not as bad as it seems, or that it would be worse if Palin was president, so we should just shut up and be happy with what we have, and that actual progressives are just a fringe minority who don’t know what we’re talking about.

This dialogue will play out in the media so that the national dialogue becomes whether we should cut Pell Grants by $100 billion over ten years, or cut them entirely.  The progressive position of “why the fuck aren’t we raising taxes on the rich, and cutting military spending?” Doesn’t fit into the dichotomous narrative of liberal vs conservative, and so it doesn’t get heard.   Because it’s a position that’s only advocated for by “fringe wackos who don’t know what they’re talking about.”

When it ends up being “only $100 billion” that's cut, the DNC apologists will say, "phew! It was a tough battle, but we won!  Let’s pat ourselves on the back for this victory!"

And the rich will continue to to get richer, just like under the Republican.
And the middle class will become working poor, just like under the Republican.
And the number of the poor will continue to grow, just like under the Republican.

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For healthcare, the US is made of four countries.

In the USA we have four different countries for healthcare purposes.
If you are in the military, you live in England.
If you are over 65, you live in Canada.
If you are insured by your employer, you live in Germany.
If you have no insurance, you live in Afghanistan.

From TR Reid's talk at the Commonwealth Club of California:


WATCH THE WHOLE THING: TR Reid, the Healing of America on Fora.tv

Judge calls healthcare mandate unconstitutional

Click here for the article in the Wall Street Journal.

Personally, I think this is a victory.

WHAT?! The Obamatons say.

Chill, let me explain.

The parts of the bill requiring health insurance companies to cover everybody, regardless of pre-existing conditions, still stand.

And the shittiest part-- forcing people to buy private insurance, the one part that the INSURANCE COMPANIES liked best, is facing the axe.

This kind of reminds me of the time that republicans accidentally banned straight marriage.

Victory! (for now).

And to all the Obamatons who think that this past Healthcare bill was the best idea ever, listen up:
Mandating insurance for health is different than mandating insurance for driving a car.
Anybody can choose to not drive and still go about their business.
Health Insurance, through this bill, is a requirement of being alive.
And there's only one way to choose to stop being alive-- and it makes it really difficult to go about your day. (I'm talking about suicide folks).

Obama Visits Maine (pt 6)

Obama Visits Maine (pt 5)

Yup. More.

Obama Visits Maine, April Fools come out- pt3

We want our way of life back, the kind we knew 30 or 40 years ago, when we were afraid of communists, our presidents were white, and we didn't know cigarettes were bad for us!
(or does he mean "when Ralph Nader was the most respected public figure in the USA, people were protesting to end the Vietnam war, and even Republicans supported welfare?")

Also, this guy thinks there are too many old people who are on Medicare and not working.

Why Dennis Kucinich Flipped His Vote

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Blog Bonus:

What Happened to Cynthia McKinney?

Public Option Myths That Liberals Believe

By Kevin Gosztola
November 20, 2009

On Saturday night, the Senate will take a procedural vote to move debate on the current health insurance enrichment bill in Congress forward.

Democratic Senators like Dick Durbin, Patrick Leahy, and Chuck Schumer, through a project called Citizens for a Public Option, have been building support for the public option and encouraging Americans to write letters to the editor that debunk health care reform myths---myths that the conservative echo chamber have been propagating.

Senators (and representatives in the House and Obama) can champion this health insurance legislation all they want and claim it will “foster greater competition in the marketplace, create more choices for consumers, and lead to lower costs and better quality for all,” but doctors who have been on the front lines of America's sick care non-system do not believe many of the arguments that Democrats are using to create support for a public option.

Myth #1 – Public option will help control costs


Dr. Margaret Flowers with Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) explains that Americans have been led to believe that “the public option is going to keep companies honest and help control costs.”

Obama and Congress are taking an approach that has failed to control costs time and time again.

“We've already had states that have tried this type of approach over the past few decades,” says Flowers. “Every state that has tried this approach has had these grandiose hopes where they had said we're going to cover this many of hundreds of thousands of people in this time period and not a single one of them has succeeded. They've all fallen far short and then gone under financially.”

Self-employed doctor, Dr. Matt Hendrickson, who risked arrest in a MobilizeforHealthcare.org action at the Cigna Offices in Glendale, CA, cites examples “from the last 20 years of states that have attempted a public option.” He explains that Tennessee, Oregon, and Massachusetss (twice) have tried the public option.

“In each case, the number of uninsured went down briefly then returned to the baseline for one reason: cost,” said Hendrickson. “There's no way to control cost as long as you allow private insurance industry to add a 25% surcharge to all healthcare transaction and to continue divert money to avoiding the sick, marketing and advertising, to avoid the sick and try to dump them onto a public plan.”

Anesthesiologist Dr. Samuel Metz, who is with the Mad as Hell Doctors, explains, “Massachusetts has been held up as an example of a state that has come closest to providing universal health insurance. However, not only has it failed to provide universal health insurance. It is also now the most expensive place on the planet for healthcare. It leads the U.S. in annual cost per person.”

The public option, “will not reduce the cost of healthcare,” says Metz. “In fact, it's anticipated it will add $800 billion more into a system that's already twice as expensive as the average industrialized nation.”


Myth #2 – The public option is a "public" option


The public option that came out of the House, according to Dr. Flowers, is “even worse than we could have imagined because they're predicting that maybe 2% of the population will be able to go into that public option, that it will be run by private insurance companies, and that it will actually cost more than private insurance.”

What's so public about something only open to 2% of the population?

As Kevin Zeese from the Prosperity Agendaexplains, “No matter how much you hate your current insurance, no matter how much they've abused you with premiums, co-pays, denials of care, no matter what they've done to you, you can't leave your insurance and go to the public option,” said Zeese. “90% of Americans can't even choose it. So much for choices.”

Flowers adds the government would be subsidizing the purse of private insurance to try to help people buy their products. Government would be putting public dollars into the pockets of private insurance companies. And, a private corporation would be allowed to run the public option.

How many Americans really think putting reform in the hands of those who have created this crisis in health care in America will ultimately work or produce any favorable results?

Myth #3 – Public option will make single-payer possible


Doctors, nurses, and patients following the de-evolution of health care reform closely know that the public option (especially the idea of a robust public option) is a carefully calculated political carrot being offered to progressives so they will sit down, shut up about single-payer, and support this current corporate giveaway to private insurance companies, which is moving through Congress right now.

Hendrickson explains, “The reason why the public option was introduced, according to congress people that have spoken to the single-payer movement, was because of the single-payer movement. There was such an upswell in the progressive part of this country for single-payer that they opted for some compromise that would not have been given if there wasn't so much support for single-payer.”

If you ask Zeese, this won't do anything to get us closer to single-payer.

This bill will “enshrine and deepen the power of the insurance industry.” Hundreds of billions of dollars in new revenue, according to Zeese, will now be available for corrupting and influencing Congress.

It will be even harder to get single-payer if a weak public option remains in the bill. And the money government gives away will help private insurance fight any additional reforms to legislation passed by Congress and Obama.

Metz concludes that the public option will make it impossible for us to achieve universal coverage for at least a decade.

“Every passing year we'll see more Americans with worse health and nobody will do anything because we will point to our legislation and say give it another couple years to work,” says Metz. “And in five years, we will have exhausted the financial resources of the government, we will have exhausted taxpayers, we will have exhausted the good will of voters, the patience of voters, and no one will want to attempt health reform again.”

# # #

Author's Bio: Kevin Gosztola is a trusted author who publishes his writing regularly to OpEdNews and Open Salon and he is a 2009 Young People For Fellow. He is a documentary filmmaker currently completing a Film/Video degree at Columbia College in Chicago. Currently, he is working on a documentary project on Renaissance 2010 and Chicago Public Schools. On Columbia College's campus, he helps organize events and programming with a humanities/social sciences group known as Critical Encounters. He is currently working with the group to plan a media summit for Chicago in April 2010 and is currently seeking speakers who are willing to participate in talking to artists and media makers about how they can use participatory or social media to create art & media that promotes conversation and action on political, social, and cultural issues.

Insurance Companies Pass Landmark Bill Part 2

Sorry that this took so long to upload. YouTube was refusing to allow me to upload it, so I uploaded it over at Blip.TV

VIDEO: Insurance Companies Pass Landmark Bill

Come back tomorrow for Part Two!

12 arrested in LA at Blue Cross

Los Angeles 10/15/09 – 12 arrested at the L.A. Anthem Blue Cross offices sit-in at as Maureen Cruise RN, public health care nurse, explains why single payer is not off the table. Along with a contingent of doctors at this recent sit-in, Cruise believes universal health care (a.k.a. single payer or medicare for all) is the only option. As Dr. Jo Olson told me, single payer is the only fiscal and moral solution. She has been working for a single payer system for the past five years. Nurse Cruise was an L.A. public health care nurse at numerous clinics until they all closed with the recent economic downturn. As she explains, 122 people die every day for lack of health care in the U.S. More die every day because they are denied health care from insurance companies despite paying their high premiums. People are forced into medical debt and foreclosure to pay for health care, unlike any other country. “What kind of country does this to it’s people?” she asks.

Nurse Cruise goes on to say that Pelosi’s announcement to the world that single payer is off the table was a ploy to make everyone forget about it and go for a public option instead, a public option written by and for the insurance industry, which spends over a million dollars per day lobbying Congress. The public option, as she says, is an insurance industry bailout, because with our economic downturn and the insurance industry’s annal retentive (my words) policy of raising rates to make up for losses, they are losing customers and so they look to the deep pockets of our government in the corporate welfare state we call America. But as long as we don’t have a viable health care system without the for profit insurance factor, and as long as we don’t have universal health care, people will continue to rally.

Sen. Al Franken Lays the Smackdown on Health Insurance Lobbyist LIES

In a repeat performance of Dennis Kucinich's smackdown in the house, Sen Al Franken lay the smackdown on the bullshit of the private health insurance industry lobbyists. Watch the video here.

Health Insurance Company: Sorry, But Rape is a Pre-Existing Condition

A Florida woman, who is a victim of sexual abuse, claims that rape was called a "pre-existing condition" by several health insurance companies, which would have disqualified her for care.

In 2002, Chris Turner, a health insurance agent from Tampa, Florida, was drugged and raped during a business trip. When she conferred with a doctor after her assault, Turner was prescribed preventative anti-HIV drugs, and she later entered counseling to help deal with the residual psychological effects of her rape.

[more after the jump]

That's your beloved Free-Market at work...