I wish Thom would point out to these right-wing doctors that having "the finest health care in the world" is meaningless to those who are financially beyond its reach. And does anyone think that health insurance industry cares about the patient as much as the doctor claims to? What the doctor deems necessary is not necessarily compatible with what the insurance company considers so, and that incompatibility may cost the patient his or her house, or force them into bankruptcy. So in fact the insurance companies stand in the way of the patient receiving what the doctor considers "the finest health care in the world"--even primary care. The doctor is either a fool, naive or a hopeless ideologue to see this. If one digs deeper, you might even find his ultimate consideration is the money he may or may not lose from health care reform.

Yes, people who don't use their health coverage, or those who can afford the best coverage, are quite happy with their insurance, while those on government-run Medicare who need care the most are also generally happy with it. It is everyone in the middle who need what health care reform offers. And why do we need reform, again?

According to the National Coalition on Health Care, insurance coverage is decreasing while medical costs are going up. Over the last decade, employer-based insurance has more than doubled in cost. 62 percent of all bankruptcies are linked to health costs. 1.5 million families lose their homes every year in part due to health care bills. Workers wages stagnate or decrease because of the cost of health insurance to employers; in some lower wage jobs, employer-based premiums for coverage for a family nearly exceeds what they are paying a worker. Within the next ten years, health care costs will again double, particularly troubling if GDP stagnates.

This is the situation the good right-wing doctor wants to continue. Today, private insurance covers about 60 percent of medical costs for those privately insured. But increasingly higher premiums, higher deductibles, higher co-pays and higher out-of-pocket expense can be expected to change that equation for the worse. Higher deductibles are particularly insidious, since insurance companies will not honor coverage unless that is paid first. Meanwhile, as baby-boomers reach Medicare age, by 2018 it is expected that over half of people in this country will be covered by a "public option" by default. And it has to be paid for.

Some conservative say that spiraling costs are due to government interference in "market-oriented" solutions. These people have no idea of what they are talking about. If they are referring to the Republican-passed Plan D, they are certainly right about that, but they otherwise seem to be extraordinarily naive about everything else. The insurance and drug cabals are nothing more or less than trusts which have no interest in reigning in costs, because they hold all the cards; employers and individuals must pay, or else. The reality is that the health insurance industry has a stake in increasing costs, just as oil companies have a stake in high oil costs. For oil companies, the inevitability of running out of oil heightens their desire to get as much profit as they can now; for health insurance companies, the decreasing percentage of the population that is not Medicare eligible makes future profitability a concern.

A significant reason for those runaway costs, reported by Business Week, is that expensive new technology is driving up costs, although they may have only "modest" benefit to patients. Doctors who like to play with this new technology certainly do not have cost in mind (except how much they will be paid), or the patient's ability to pay. According to the story, "Price insensitivity on behalf of customers, lack of competition, technological complexity—they all add up to immense inflationary pressures on health-care costs." This medical price inflation accounts for 51 percent of the rise in medical costs. Although an older population's access to expensive technology that prolongs life has been a major contributor to costs, this does not explain the CBO's finding that more than half of all medical treatments have not been supported by evidence that they actually work; tried and true treatments which are less expensive have been set aside for questionable new toys. Furthermore, the Week notes that the cost of the "learning curve" to acquire proficiency in new technology has been prohibitive.

Health care reform means more than just enacting a public option, since it will be sooner rather than later that half of us will be on government-run Medicare. Reeling-in costs will require government "interference," because market-oriented "solutions" have proven to be disastrous for this country.

Following the troll seems to be my unhappy lot today. Speaking of following trolls...I'll be missing the show today in order to attend a Michele Bachmann town hall on health care. I will be armed with a few interesting questions for the hyperbolic congresswoman. Who knows if I'll get an opportunity to pose them. I'll report back tomorrow about what I see and hear. Someone please say a prayer for me.

How can legal tender be illegal?

Robert Kahre is facing up to 296 years in prison. His crime? He hired workers on mutually-agreed terms, and paid them in gold and silver dollars rather than in Federal Reserve dollars.

First, some background . . .

* The face value of the U.S. Mint's gold and silver coins are legal tender, meaning they must be accepted in payment of debt
* But a Gold Eagle coin that has "$50" printed on it is legal tender only up to $50, while its gold content is worth about $1,000 in Federal Reserve notes
* No law or IRS regulation requires that receivers of Gold Eagles and other U.S. Mint coins must report the market value of the coins instead of the legal tender value

After extensively researching the issue, Kahre . . .

* hired workers as independent contractors, so he would not pay the payroll tax for their labor
* paid them in gold and silver coins, whose face value - that is, legal tender value - was so low that the workers legally didn't have to report it as income to the IRS

For instance, if a worker was annually paid in gold coins with a legal tender face value of $2,000, the market value of the gold content in those coins could be $40,000, but only the legal tender face value of $2,000 would theoretically count as taxable income. That face value of $2,000 is low enough to be non-reportable to the IRS. But . . .

Even though the coins Kahre used were legal tender, the Justice Department alleged that Kahre's system was a fraudulent, tax-evading scam.

We agree with Jacob Hornberger who asserts that the federal government's prosecution of Kahre is self-contradictory . . .
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2009-08-17.asp

* if you owe $100 in taxes and pay with gold coins with face values totalling $100, the IRS will accept the payment as $100; it could then sell the coins on the market for twenty times that amount and keep the difference. The government will accept your payment as "legal tender."
* but if YOU receive gold coins from someone else in a private transaction, the IRS says you must report the market value of the coins, not the face value. That is, YOU CANNOT TREAT THE COINS AS LEGAL TENDER.

http://www.DownsizeDC.org

THOM!!!!

Thank you for making Tanner choke at the end of the segment.

I disagree with the David Aaronovitchis' theory that it's scarier to believe the government is incompetent rather than intentionally evil.

Several years ago I attended a 911 Truth Group meeting that explained that cell phone calls couldn't be made from the altitude the planes were flying. The speaker claimed that although cell phone technology wasn't capable of making high altitude calls yet, what was available was voice technology where voices could be copied and cell phone calls manufactured. He implied that all of those phone calls from the air had been shamelessly staged.

That thought scared me so badly I had to leave the packed auditorium and go walking for three hours. I don't have any idea if that is possible. I can't even figure out whether or not to advise my daughter to get a flu vaccination or not. The whole thing is mind boggling, but it sure is fascinating! The 911 Truth groupers feel almost like a religious group. The speaker I heard was a pastor and sounded like an evangelist as he lifted the crowd to nearly speaking in tongues over 911.

Loretta,

I agree that intentional evil is scarier than incompetence. It's easy to make mistakes.

It seems that there is so much theory one way or the other. I always ask, "who stands to benefit and why?" That allows me to take a step back, out of the immediate fear through which others may try to manipulate us.

Prayer from me too! Funny T-shirt idea Richard. That's great. Damn, I wish you would have been inspired yesterday. It may be too late:-)

Loretta, while I dispute the official story of 9/11, I strongly agree with your opinion of the 9/11 Truth movement. It has become more like a religion and like a religion requires near complete fealty to it. I've had to pull back a bit from it, because I'm think I'm seeing the movement being co-opted into movements against health care reform and against protection of the environment, especially related to global warming.

David Ray Griffin is a wackadoodle truther.

Truthers are left wing nuts, just like birthers are right wing nuts.

Why is Thom giving this clown air time?

Aaronovitchis seemed to be UNAWARE (which is unlikely -- so this is sarcasm) that the Neocons' Project for a New American Century (PNAC) clearly stated their need and desire of a "New Pearl Harbor".

That Bush conveniently used the 9/11 WTC detruction to gin up a FEAR campaign for his invasion of innocent nations like Afghanistan and Iraq does not look like two separate things from my perspective -- but rather a single seamless process!

Tom,

I listen to you daily, I have learned quite a bit from your show. However, I am disappointed in your segments with the 9/11 myth maker David Aaronovitchis. First of all your demeanor with him was one of respect, while your demeanor with David R Griffen was dismissive. Mr. Griffen's time was shorter, and you clearly wanted Mr. Aaronovitchis to give his prepared stock answers.

His experiment was bogus because he looked at only one small beam, to assume the entire building or even the entire floor was seeing the same heat loading is not supported by the photographic evidence or the firemen's audio accounts that have been released. THIS IS OBVIOUS. But you were silent.

Tom I sincerely hope you are not a tool of the Might Wurlitzer, called on to be friendly to govt. propaganda when the timing is right.

Thom
You cut David off and changed the subject when he was in the middle of telling your audience that in their final report, NIST admitted that WTC 7 fell at free fall acceleration for over 2 seconds [105 feet]. This is the proof the NIST did NOT explain the collapse of WTC 7.

Shyam Sunder had stated in a briefing on 8-26-08 that: "a free fall time would be an object that has no structural components below it and that is not is not all unusual because there was structural resistance that was provided in this particular case." In other words, in the NIST scenario of progressive collapse there are always structural components providing resistance and preventing free fall acceleration from occurring. The NIST scenario and computer model do NOT fall at free fall acceleration.
For free fall acceleration to occur, all the structural supports on 7-8 floors were removed within 2 seconds. The only explanation is they were removed with explosives.

BTW: "OBL and 19 hijackers did it." is a conspiracy theory.
Any crime committed by two or more people is a conspiracy.
WTC 7 was a controlled demolition/progressive collapse are alternate building destruction theories.

Thom should be ashamed of himself for encouraging truthers