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DAnne believe me I was just stating a fact. I do not like it I think it is horrible.
Yesterday someone asked me if I like the healthcare in the US soo much why don't I move there. The truth is I tried. Back in the 80's I was offered a job in Texas in the oil business. My Visa was denied. But hopefully within five years I will be spending my winters down there. I purchased a home in Scottsdale AZ to get out of these horrible winters. I challenge any of you to spend a winter up here. I will warn you though you will may turn into a climate change denier
Thom, once again you place all the blame on Reagan and his policies that are not being pushed by any politician; haven't been active since GHWB. Your arguments are absurd.
Education costs have skyrocketed because of the greedy leftists running higher education have driven up the cost because leftists in Washington keep dumping money into student loan programs. The students pay the price of this giant money laundering scheme.
Healthcare costs are reflective of government intrusion into the market that has driven the costs up since the inception of medicare in the 60's. These are all left-wing policies that drive up the costs by removing market forces (shoppers shopping for price/value) and replacing them with bureacracies that grow in power as they spend ever more public monies.
Your socialism does not work, never has, never will. We have survived thus far because we out-produced your idiocy. But BHO is putting an end to that with Obamacare and restructuring the workplace/workweek to force his version of 'healthcare' upon an unsuspecting public.
Kend ~ Healthcare is measured by the care the sickest person gets--not the richest. Get real!
Alice you do have the best healthcare in the world. But only if you have money. It is sad but true.
Ms. Metcalfe, great post. My only disagreement is with your comment that ours is the “best healthcare in the world”. Gosh I hope not. The number of deaths in this country, just from hospital-borne infections, is pretty sobering. I did a quick google search, locating Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, where I found the data for 2011. 722,000 “healthcare-associated infections” (as they are called) occurred in the United States that year, resulting in 75,000 deaths. That’s even more deaths caused by hospital-borne infections than from lack of access to healthcare in this country! Wow-we.
Recently this happened to someone I know, a man in his late fifties. I’ll call him Stan. Stan was recovering from surgery and unsteady on his feet, using a walker to get around. Maybe a week after he got home from the hospital, Stan took a nasty fall and cut his head pretty bad. So he went back to the local hospital for stitches, returning home with his head bandaged up. When Stan eventually removed the bandage, he discovered the stitched wound infected, requiring additional treatment.
Gee, I wonder if these unfortunate souls are forced to pay for the additional treatments necessitated by hospital error, ineptitude and neglect.
And just to further my point, I learned from Thom Hartmann that a woman is twice as likely to die in childbirth here compared with women in Canada.
I think this whole healthcare situation in the U.S. is outrageous. We're paying more than anyone on the planet for heathcare, and this is what we’re getting. And for what purpose? Just to create and maintain a parasitic class of billionaires, living high and mighty on their ill-gotten gains while we and those we care about suffer and die. Unnecessarily and avoidably. So you see, everytime I hear someone call this the “best healthcare in the world”, I cringe while my head explodes.
Sorry Ms. M, I’m not trying to detract from your thoughtfully written overview of our collective predicament. But this “uniquely American” brand of healthcare is a disgrace. Just "callin' a spade a spade"... - AIW
Now lets get one thing straight. Before we all applaud all the humanitarian hogwash the media is spilling in our laps about ISIS and what they are doing. Let's review this little interview with General Wesley Clark concerning the Pentagons ambitions concerning the middle east. Let us review this very closely because Iran and WWIII are next on the menu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LTdx1nPu3k
dblick ~ Tracking us and reading our emails? No my friend. I'm afraid that is what the NSA does. From what I have heard from a DHS insider the only thing the DHS does is to spy on other spy agencies. Perhaps the efficiency of the FBI and CIA to identify and track the 9/11 hijackers and warn the government in time was somewhat disconcerting to the orchestrators of this evil act. It is my belief that the DHS sole purpose is to watch what the watchers are watching. Perhaps to interfere with their work on future false flags and to perform damage control. In addition to that theory the only solid fact I can give you is that when I called the DHS with a serious potential terrorist concern they basically blew me off and told me to call my local police department. They weren't interested! Exactly how can that be?
Renewables work. Corporations have money. We have The People.
We, The People, need to keep being seen and heard. Again and Again!
What truly saddens me is that during the past 9 years, many of the Middle Class families who once were the most generous donators to our local food bank, are now living on one income instead of two; quite often these families are finding themselves short of the money and food to donate, as well as the ability to feed their own families healthy meals. Many have already dipped into their children's college funds, or their retirement savings. The person who is still employed is working longer hours to prove worthy of job retention, with no overtime. And quite frequently they must come to the food banks they once proudly helped stock.
Employer provided healthcare has been severely eroded. IF the still-employed family member is lucky enough to have it for the entire family, the costs being deducted from his/her salary are elevated... which means even less money coming home in a paycheck.
We desperately need to raise the wages for people who are now forced to take jobs meant for college people, and minimum wage does NOT support a family. They are the working-themselves-to-death POOR, with no access to healthcare, and often not quite poor enough to guanantee they can qualify for county or state relief. God forbid that any of them still actually own a home and become ill. Medical debts become a lien against whatever property they have managed to hang onto. And there is no guarantee they can ever catch up.
We always find the money to wage war, but Congress has no sympathy for those who come home wounded and disabled. We have the best healthcare in the world, but many states refuse to expand Medicaid, and those who need medical treatment cannot get it. Our children are still getting pregnant at ridiculous ages, but many states don't want them educated about birth control, or to get abortions when it's the best thing to do, because it's the girl's fault - she should have said no just one more time, not worn that particular outfit, not walked down that street, or just kept her legs together tighter. I'm sure they feel the same way about grown women of child-bearing age. And God calls it murder.
What's wrong with America? It's not simply Reagonomics, although that's a large part of it. It's the refusal of Congress to hear the American peoples' cries for more help and less bombs, or their cries for less gridlock and more bipartisanship. Both Houses seem more determined to demean our President, overall, than represent the people who pay their salaries and healthcare costs. What an ungrateful bunch of greedy, political thugs!
I can only hope that RayGuns is burning in Hell. Or better still, suffering from hunger, homelessness and untreated, and very painful, health problems
Re Nov 4 th election. As a former Moderate GOP voter (of which no longer exist ) I fear the worst , but hope for a miracle. Millions of voters do not care- have given up- are too busy- are hopeless - are skeptics are Fox Hannity Rush Drudge loyal fans to bother to vote and or become informed. I am 71. In my lifetime I've seen GOP do a 180 . From moderates like Ike to far right wing anti middle class anti women Corp War loving GOP suck ups. I am beyond depressed..but I will VOTE nontheless . I owe it to those who fought & died for that right . We must repeaL Glass Steagal- Citizens United- Clinton was wrong to pass NAFTA CAFTA GATT much of it at GOP & Greenspans urging. Money is NOT sppech . If it is Those without money have Less of a VOICE. Corps are Not persons. Our right wing anti middle class Supreme Court makes wealth favoring laws . GOP ' leaders' fights for more CORP cuts, loopholes, subsides . privatizing SS , our oldage safety net which we paid for all our working lifes.
GOP & Bush pushed hard to give our SS to Wall St to gamble away
NO WAY we know how Greedy corrupt Wall St operates .
Syria should never have given up it's one guarantee that other countries, like the US or Israel, would try to invade...the weapons of mass destruction...the chemical weapons. That was pretty much an invitation for an eventual invasion. It would be the same if it had nukes that it could launch toward Israel. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) does work.
You know, costs of hospitalization could be far cheaper if they still had "barracks" style wards with, say, 30 or more beds. And those beds don't have to be the fancy and expensive kind in most cases either. And they might only have one or two large screen TVs per ward rather than the single rooms with a TV in each room as is often the case now.
But, as far as I know or have ever seen, they have mostly private rooms or rooms with only 2 beds per room....or maybe 4 beds per room. People who can't afford, or choose not to pay for the more private rooms, or 2 bed or 4 bed rooms, would get put into the barracks style rooms. I'm sure many poor people would rather the barracks style rooms than no medical care at all. But, I think the reason why they don't have barracks style wards now is so that the people that make money off of hospitals... the stockholders... can justify charging the rates they do. By compartmentalizing into smaller units...the rooms...stuffed full of electronic gadgets and an expensive bed...is used to justify charging what they now charge. They've driven the costs way up so that most people cannot afford staying in a hospital for very long.
Maybe more people are considering getting their operations and hospitalization in places like Mexico or India where costs are not so jacked up as in the US. Some people take "Medical Vacations".
Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert talk about "drive-by" doctoring on today's show on RT.
http://www.maxkeiser.com/2014/09/kr658-keiser-report-devastating-drive-b...
This is almost a reason to just avoid going to any medical professional or hospital and just die. These criminal scammers know how much money you have in your bank accounts and will try to suck you dry with exorbitant billing for needless procedures or "drive-by" doctors who do nothing more than briefly show up with unscheduled needless appearances that you have never agreed to.
Tom,
Listening to show today. I live in Wisconsin and have been very active politically. The ID debate as mentioned by the Calif. caller isnt about ID and procedure, its about voter supression. When I go to vote ay my precient, (Paul Ryans)they are careful to find my name,get my signature and issue me a number to go to the next step to gat a ballot. If someone else came in and said they were me, they would of commited fruad etc. No one has ever tried to cast a vote posing as someone else in my precient. Never. The republicans spent millions on voter fraud investigations and found a few-les than 20 individuals claiming to be someone else and or trying to cast multiple votes in one day. Voter fraud in Wisconsin, practally speaking or statisticly vertually non existant. Its akin to imposing a multi million dollar jay walking investigation in the mountains of Papau New Guinea. The fraud, if any ,is in the post election count not with the, or the Supereme Court in Florida, NOT individual citizen voters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/06/a-comprehensi...
Peace,
Randall S
Just a warning for those who have signed on with Obamacare...when you reach the age of 65 and get on to Medicare...it is not easy to cancel with your health care provider. They'll keep sending you bills for the premiums even after you have tried to cancel with them. When you call them by phone, after waiting 45 minutes to get a human on the line, the health care provider will tell you that they can't cancel you...that you have to terminate with your state's "marketplace" which in the case of the people I know, that have this problem that live in California, is called "Covered California". I don't know if other people have had this problem with other healthcare providers but in the case my friends... theirs is Blue Shield of California....the ones who have been in the news lately about buying expensive sports stadium spectator boxes for their top execs. But, my friends did cancel with Covered California...twice. And they have sent emails to both BS and CC and have never gotten a reply. Something has got to be screwed up with their on-line web site if one can cancel twice and still be getting bills for 3 months...or, it's a racket rigged to scam people. Once they get their claws in you it's hard to get them out. My friends have not paid those bills because they believe that if they do, they will just continue to be sent more bills after that...never being cancelled (terminated).
They have even gone to their local Social Services office and the Social Security office but neither one could help them.
I've tried to search the internet about this and one thing I've read was that it is illegal to have the subsidized ACA insurance (Obamacare) and Medicare at the same time. You can have both but you will have to pay the entire cost of premiums including what the government had been paying for the subsidized Obamacare insurance...ie: you will have to pay the full price of the premiums. Most people will probably want to drop Obamacare and go with only Medicare or go with a Medicare Supplemental insurance. And for most cases, Medicare is all that is needed anyway. Paying insurance companies in addition to Medicare, for most people, is just a waste of money...unless you have special circumstances....according to articles I've read from studies done written about in major newspaper articles. According to the articles I've read, only about one third of those eligible for Medicare decides to get Supplemental Medicare insurance.
what momentum? millions of people marching will have little or no effect without political action. shame won't affect polluters; only laws will restrain them.
I think I've figured out why Republican voters don't turn on the people that screw them over after they get elected: http://www.thomhartmann.com/users/mathboy/blog/2014/09/electoral-masochism-explained
geochand, union do not oppose Medicaid because it's the right thing to do.
What will it take to go green ?
Not the two ruling institutions masquerading as political parties. Enough of the evil of the two lessers.
You want green ? Register and vote Green.
The real problem with our healthcare is that it is not run by the government. The real problem behind that is all the sick glut of defense contractors that are sucking up the windfall of tax revenue that would handsomely pay for the best healthcare system in the world without raising taxes 1 cent. When you look for the reason we can't afford a life giving service like single-payer health care in this country, look no further than the life taking service of the military industrial complex that is--as warned by President Eisenhower--robbing all of us blind with it's "acquisition of unwarranted influence."
In my opinion, our health care crisis is just part of the smoke screen that allows the military industrial complex to rip us off. After all, isn't that why Ike stated in his farewell address that a bomber costs the price of a hospital. Think about it folks! Think about this: Right now, we are launching our hospitals at ISIS in Syria. Think about that real good!
AIW, I agree with your overall assessment and I’m fan of socialist ideology; admittedly, I follow closer to anarchist traditions, but there is a lot of overlap between both socialism and anarchism. Noam Chomsky is one the most awesome people on the plant; I trust Prof. Chomsky wild guess over a “fact” coming from the White House any day.
Alberto Ceras 2 ~ I hear you; and, don't blame you. Congress--and even the entertainment world--is so full of blind supporters of Israel's naked aggression and crimes against humanity that it's sickening and most troubling. I can understand the skepticism in anyone.
Geo, I'm sorry you're so outraged by some of us getting free healthcare. I think we all should be getting that. Your resentment illustrates the divisive nature of a status quo that fails to treat all Americans equally in that regard. Instead of bitching about state-subsidized healthcare for poor folks, people like you should be fighting for a single payer system. And by the way, if we had single payer your car insurance would be a fraction of what you're having to pay for it now. Your anger is misdirected; try channeling it into something more constructive. - AIW
Richard, thank you for that. And I happen to be a big fan of Noam Chomsky’s.
This country’s mean-spirited, abusive policies towards Cuba make me ashamed to be an American. As Chomsky explains it, the U.S.’s only real case against Cuba is that Cuba puts the welfare of her people first. Can’t have that! Maybe it’s a threat to the U.S. because it makes us look bad, as well it should.
Seems the U.S. is becoming a third world nation very quickly, in every way except for it’s obscene military industrial complex. Every time I hear President Obama make reference to “our interests” abroad, I could throw up. Corporate interests is all it is. Meanwhile our infrastructure is crumbling, our social safety net is vanishing while people continue to die from medical neglect.
Like you, Richard, I’m very distrustful of communism. I know little about it but have had the general impression it’s authoritarian by design. However I am, unapologetically, a socialist. And I believe capitalism to be the root of all evil. - AIW