Recent comments
ADHD: Hunter in a Farmer's World
Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
Join Thom for his new twice-weekly email newsletters on ADHD, whether it affects you or a member of your family.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Chuckle8, I had to wait over a year for a hernia operation and 14 hours in the emergency room each time I went - on the state/county funded level and after massive cuts in 2011. The Canadian system is not the only method of delivering single payer. It's kind of a public/private mix - kind of like Obamacare - and maybe for that reason not cost effective, I don't know. Anyway, I don't believe other systems have that problem and the taxes are not nearly as high as Kend says. I'm rather sure it's 15% in Germany, for example, (at least it was 10-15 years ago) not 50%.
DAnneMarc: With colonoscopies they do use anethetics but you are still awake and you can certainly feel that thing snake through your gut and every so often you do get a little sensation of, I wouldn't really call it pain, well, maybe a little. It's just a very odd sensation..not pleasant for sure! But, for me, it wasn't that bad. I was even able to watch some of it on the monitor...except the monitor was behind me but I could catch glimpses of it. Those color photos they give you are really kind of neat.
The thought that they might screw up and perforate your intestine, and it does happen sometimes, is kind of scarey. It was even more scarey having read about, and watched the news reports back then, of the VA not properly sterilizing their probes. Some people actually got infected by unclean probes from probes that had been previously used on other people who had AIDS. Same thing with dentists...that was a big scare an number of years ago as well...people getting AIDS from unsterilized Dentist tools.
Palindromedary ~ Nothing I can add to that. I agree 100%; and, very, very, very well said!!!
Palindromedary ~ Wow! That is where you and I are completely different. You see, I have no problems with stuff coming out of that end. The drink I got had flavor packets with it. I chose lime flavor. You mix it up and then refrigerate it for a hour or two. It actually tastes quite nice when it's ready. It's also a great excuse to stay home--near the toilet. Talk about "Rocket Man."
That part of the experience I enjoyed thoroughly. Actually, I wouldn't mind partying on that stuff. You have to take those other pills too for the full effect don't forget. However, if you were to take the pills, mix the mixture, and refrigerate it. Then later, mix it with some margarita mix, Squirt soda, ice, and some really good tequila... Oh man, that would be a blast--worth inviting friends over for! Just make sure there is more than one bathroom.
What you have to pay for a colonoscopy, when you are on ACA, depends upon what insurance company you chose and what plan you chose. The more you pay for an insurance plan, the less you will be billed for anything. You either pay large premiums up front every month and have lower deductibles and copays and lower maximums. Many poor people may get larger subsidies from the government, through ACA, because they make less, and they may also choose the cheapest plans, but if they ever need medical care they will have to pay big money. They get you either way. ACA does make it more affordable; but, for many people it's still unaffordable. At least they have some coverage, which could be a life safer, but then one might wish they had died instead of having to pay such high medical bills. And, as the economist Michael Hudson says: "Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid." By the debtors anyway...the tax payers will have to pay it all....and since the wealthy won't pay their fair share of the taxes, that means everyone else's taxes will go up. But these damn insurance companies will not take a hit...even with ACA...it's their scam anyway. Their scam to get the government to force everyone to pay them whether they want to or not. And, they'll keep on raking in all those monthly premiums from both the patients and the government and will soon increase the costs of the premiums. What we really need is Medicare for all, run by the government and not those high paid criminals profit-motivated bastards in their ivory towers. But first, we have to get the money out of politics...make it a crime punishable by death for trying to bribe a Congress person or President. Because, after all, isn't that what these rich profit-motivated bastards are doing to many of us...killing us for profit?
I had my colonoscopy done by the VA and they found a polyp that they removed. Basically, what they do is slip a little, very strong, rubber band off of the end of the probe onto the base of the polyp and that rubber band cuts off the blood supply to the polyp. It takes a while for the polyp to die and drop off. Actually, mine wasn't too bad. It was certainly not as painful as going to the dentist. But having to drink all of that special, very sour, liquid a day before you get the colonoscopy, to clean you out, is not very pleasant. I don't think I even had to pay anything to the VA for that. I have to pay for my prescription medicines $8 per prescription and they give me enough for about 3 months. The VA does have a good computerized records system...and you don't even have to take a prescription to a pharmacy...just walk over to the in-clinic pharmacy and they hand you the meds. Then after that, you just call in to an automated system to refill your orders and they mail them to you. I'm very happy with this arrangement. I'm just not too confident that my primary care VA doctor will catch anything like cancer inside of me..just as what happened to a friend of mine recently who died of cancer. The VA system can get all those medicines at cut rate prices and they pass those savings on to the patients. Just think how well it would go if we had a government-run Universal Healthcare system where we cut out those damn insurance companies and their filthy rich CEOs, top executives, and the stockholders of those companies.
Mark- Great idea! Count me in. - AIW
chuckle8 ~ That would sure make sense to me. However, you have to ask Palindromedary about those charges since the last one I had was before the ACA kicked in. That is assuming you are talking about charges and not a candlelit dinner, flowers, chocolate, and soft music.
Personally, I don't care what you are talking about. Regardless of what the ACA mandates the moon could turn green and hell could freeze over before I have another one of those things done to me.
The worst part of the whole experience is at the end when they finally "pull out" and tell you, "Well sir, everything looks fine and you are the spitting image of heath." Don't tell me that! Tell me, "Thank God we just did this to you. We just found a tactical nuke wedged somewhere between your rectum and your stomach and we successfully removed it. Had you not undergone this procedure you might have exploded and taken out the entire west coast of the United States with you. You just saved thousands of lives including your own. Consider yourself a hero!"
That's what I want to hear. How now I'm a hero. Not how I just paid a fortune to Rescue Rooter to snake my own body for nothing.
AIW -- It would be interesting to konw what some of the details are of the proposed modifications to medicare. Medicare was created as a wet dream for that part of the 1% represented by the AMA. Dylan Ratigan in his book "Greedy Bastards" tells how the managed care system used by the Mayo clinic cut costs in half. Then he points out that the VA using a new software system cut the Mayo clinic model costs in half again. The VA offered the new system free of charge to any medical entity that wanted to use it. The only one who asked for it were some foreign countries.
DAm -- I thought colonoscopies were free with the ACA for the reasons you stated.
hankgagnon -- As far as behavior modification is concerned. making credit card interest deductible would be the wrong move. I would much prefer national usury laws.
Mark S -- When I was a student at Purdue in W. Lafayette, IN in 1972, my colon started bleeding. The student health centers tried to discover what was wrong. One of the tests I remember was barium enema. When they finally gave up and referred me to a specialist, it took 6 weeks to meet the specialist. The specialist knew immediately what was wrong with me and prescribed azulfidine. My bleeding stopped within a week. USians also have to wait; even with something that appears life threatening.
You're right, Alice. It's not middle class supremecism it's about growing the middle class. Let's drag some one percenters down here with us while we're at it.
Kend, read the article and have a nice day. - AIW
The Austrian School is, as Marxist Bukharin aptly titled his book in rebuttle to them, The Economic Theories of the Liesure Classes.
Alice please don't get me wrong. I have no problem with single payer. I just think it should be done state by state. I think they need to do it nationally down there to bail out the over spenders. Plus health care to manage with well over 300 million will be a nightmare. If I lived in a well managed young populated state this would scare the heck out of me Because they are going to subsadise Other areas of the country.
Alice not to many studies ever become what they predict. Time will tell. I am living your dream and it isn't all what it's cracked up to be. Keep in mind Canada has a tenth of the population of the US and ten times the resources and we are having a hard time keeping up. The countries with good health care are paying about 50% federal tax. Why would the US be any different. Here it comes, get ready for your standard of living to drop. The good news is you all will be living.
You don't have to sell me on less military down there. It's someone else's turn to police the world. you have done enough. Make sure you are energy self suffencient though all hell will break lose in the Middle East.
What I find immensely intriguing, Kend, is that the cost of defense and weaponry is seldom if ever addressed. I've never seen you mention the cost of U.S. "defense" spending. For some reason the cost of these endless wars our government seems hell-bent on perpetuating is never questioned despite the huge burden of expense associated with that, even though it benefits no one but a tiny group of very wealthy individuals who just happen to profit from it. Yet despite literally trillions of dollars sucked out of our economy by the Pentagon, its suppliers & enablers, it is the cost of health care that is the focus of endless debate. People can't stop bickering over the cost of saving and supporting life, while the cost of destroying life is simply taken for granted as the cost of doin' bizness... like you know, when you're "leaders of the free world" it goes with the territory!
But take a peek behind that veil and what do you see? What I see is a culture of death: wars, assassinations, executions, starvation, healthcare extortion... They're culling the herd already. Meanwhile We The Sheeple continue bickering over the cost of health care. Brilliant. And here we've got this Canadian dude telling us in effect that health care is too expensive and we should just forget it, since we can't really afford it. We the citizens of the supposedly richest country in the world. A country so rich it can afford to arm itself with a nuclear arsenal and military complex huge enough to nearly match the size of the combined militaries & arsenal of all other countries on the planet! Ain't that just a wee bit ironic, Kend? How do you justify this double standard? - Aliceinwonderland
Kend- Since you apparently are so fixated on this healthcare issue, I thought I might, once again, post an article Marc introduced here eons ago. This article tells how we could pay for health care. I've re-posted it two or three times already, thinking maybe it might educate you to the feasability of healthcare for all in this country. It is doable despite the messages to the contrary we've been fed on a daily basis, over the past several decades. So here's it is, if you think you can handle a little dose of reality:
An article by Physicians For A National Health Care Program
"Medicare for All" would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study wrote: Upgrading the nation’s Medicare program and expanding it to cover people of all ages would yield more than a half-trillion dollars in efficiency savings in its first year of operation, enough to pay for high-quality, comprehensive health benefits for all residents of the United States at a lower cost to most individuals, families and businesses.
That’s the chief finding of a new fiscal study by Gerald Friedman, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. There would even be money left over to help pay down the national debt, he said.
"Medicare for All" would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study wrote: Friedman says his analysis shows that a nonprofit single-payer system based on the principles of the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, introduced by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and co-sponsored by 45 other lawmakers, would save an estimated $592 billion in 2014. That would be more than enough to cover all 44 million people the government estimates will be uninsured in that year and to upgrade benefits for everyone else.
“No other plan can achieve this magnitude of savings on health care,” Friedman said.
"Medicare for All" would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study wrote: “These savings would be more than enough to fund $343 billion in improvements to our health system, including the achievement of truly universal coverage, improved benefits, and the elimination of premiums, co-payments and deductibles, which are major barriers to people seeking care,” he said.
"Medicare for All" would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study wrote: Over the next decade, the system’s savings from reduced health inflation (“bending the cost curve”), thanks to cost-control methods such as negotiated fees, lump-sum payments to hospitals, and capital planning, would amount to an estimated $1.8 trillion.
"Medicare for All" would cover everyone, save billions in first year: new study wrote: Friedman said the plan would be funded by maintaining current federal revenues for health care and imposing new, modest tax increases on very high income earners. It would also be funded by a small increase in payroll taxes on employers, who would no longer pay health insurance premiums, and a new, very small tax on stock and bond transactions.
“Such a financing scheme would vastly simplify how the nation pays for care, restore free choice of physician, guarantee all necessary medical care, improve patient health and, because it would be financed by a program of progressive taxation, result in 95 percent of all U.S. households saving money,” Friedman said.
Friedman’s findings are consistent with other research showing large savings from a single-payer plan. Single-payer fiscal studies by other economists, such as Kenneth E. Thorpe (2005), have arrived at similar conclusions, as have studies conducted by the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accountability Office in the early 1990s. Other studies have documented the administrative efficiency and other benefits of Canada’s single-payer system in comparison with the current U.S. system.
Friedman’s research was commissioned by Physicians for a National Health Program, a nonprofit research and educational organization of more than 18,000 doctors nationwide, which wanted to find out how much a single-payer system would cost today and how it could be financed.
You see, Kend, it's not a problem of available funds. It's only a matter of priority, or lack thereof, for those in seats of power. - Aliceinwonderland
Palindromedary ~ $3K for less than 30 minutes of light work? Who the hell do these Doctors think they are anyway? The President of the United States doesn't make that kind of money for not getting all of us killed--and he's a much bigger pain in the a$$. Sure our insurance companies are as corrupt as can be and are skimming as much money as they can off the top; however, our healthcare system is the #1 problem. At a rip off cost like that many people are just going to avoid it; and, then what? The system will eventually get super bogged down by a surplus of easily preventable catastrophic illnesses.
I'll say it again, preventive medicine should be encouraged and free. Forcing these kinds of prices on patients is nothing short of a soft genocide. There is no other practical or logical way of describing it. After all, a colonoscopy is no picnic; yet, it prevents potentially lethal and expensive health problems. As such every effort should be made to encourage people to have them. There should be no cost and a wide variety of incentives; and, some flowers, chocolate, champagne, and soft music wouldn't hurt. I personally prefer "You Lift Me Up Where We Belong," "Rocket Man," or, "You Light Up My Life."
(Sorry I couldn't make it thorough that without being silly. It helps to laugh at things that make you "uncomfortable"--especially when they are such a necessary evil.)
Palin there is a few things you need to know about the Canadian system. first of all it is not a national single payer system Each province or territory runs the own. Second Canada is one of the few countries in the world along with China and Cuba that do not have a combination of private and public And this is heavily debated here. Most provinces budget and set limits on how many surgerys can be preformed per day/weeks etc of course life threarening things are done ASAP. Provinces that have the best health care are the ones going into massive debt. Of course this is not substanable. The reason for the large increase is life span. We are living longer and the winter of our life costs a lot. I think the problem with both our systems is we are not honest with the true cost of health care. The left down their says it's the insurance companies and the right here says its the government mismanaged it to drive costs up. I think its simply costing us more. The danger with the ACA is if the true cost of health care are not brought forward the ACA will get the blame For the cost increases to come.
I think it is a huge mistake to make a national Heath care system like you are. If it was done state by state you could compare what works and what doesn't Helping every state get better care. This way you are stuck with what you get. I have no proof just my opinion but I think states like New York and Taxaforina are in huge trouble with liabilities to government health care plans and need something to bail them out. Why else would they try and mange something like health care in such a massive way. It's going to be a diaster.
We don't hear or read much about: In the 1980's Reagan and his bank thugs bribed the Republicans in Congress to take away the tax deduction for credit card interest. We we all told it was a good thing because only the rich carry a lot of credit cards which was true at the time. But what the scammer Banksters did not tell anyone is they were going to make unsecured credit easy for everybody, even people like college students, welfare recipients, and anyone else they could sweep into their web of greed and scam money from unsuspecting people.We need to make credit card interest deductable again for income earners in the Middle Class range, and phase the deduction out of the highest income brackets.
Two points, Alice, or maybe three...
Firstly, on the teaching of history in U.S. public schools: the rote-learning oppressiveness of the USian approach to teaching history and other social studies was an issue when I was in high school (1954-1958), and it has remained so ever since. (I have no feedback from earlier generations because my father attended private schools -- yes my family was once wealthy, but that was lost forever in the Crash of 1929 -- and neither my mother nor my stepmother were sort to question the status quo.) But I presume, based on what I have heard from other sources, the stultifying approach was similar in the pre-war public schools as well.
In truth though there are probably only two workable approaches to teaching history. One, the drudgery of rote learning, makes the subject not only repugnant but meaningless. But the other method, which makes the subject as fascinating as any of the best novels (often even to those who would normally pass it by), approaches history as the dynamic expression of human consciousness -- cause and effect, class struggle, the interaction of the individual with the environment, the economy, the state and the extant technologies. That is how my father was taught history in his New England boarding schools, how he taught it to me (though he was a terrible parent, he was also the best teacher I ever knew), how it is generally taught on the college level, and how it would be taught in public schools were the USian Ruling Class not unalterably opposed to letting us learn the vital lessons history imparts.
It is obvious -- especially when you consider the duration of the public-school controversy about the teaching of history and other social studies -- the odiousness with which history is afflicted by its public-school teachers is not only deliberate but maliciously so. Who in USian public schools is assigned to teach history? Usually it's the main-sport varsity coaches (football, basketball, baseball) -- which means you the student are being instructed in history by the teachers who are dumbest, most testosterone-afflicted and therefore most inclined to fascism. Because of their stupidity, rote learning is the only teaching method of which they are capable, and because of their locker-room values, which are the values of the school-yard bully, they are drawn to fascism like iron-filings to a magnet. (Yes, during the 1950s there were sometimes females teaching history and other social studies in the public schools, but the three such teachers I encountered -- this in three different high schools -- were even more rigid then the males, no doubt because each was a devotee of Ayn Rand. (Yeah, she and her fictional variants on the Mein Kampf theme have been around that long, The Fountainhead since 1943.)
The other reason the teaching of history as a cause-and-effect expression of human consciousness is taboo in USian public schools is that the entire concept of historical dynamics is Marxist in origin. Moreover, this approach to the study of history is inevitably the study of class struggle -- the reality of which is thus proven beyond argument. While that alone is sufficient to ensure its banishment from the USian public classroom, there is also the fact history so taught refutes the concept of "progress" and replaces it with the truth the human condition waxes and wanes like everything else in Nature -- a truth that from the perspective of Abrahamic religion is the rankest of heresies.
Bottom line, Alice, is you like most USians were victimized by your history teachers and thereby duped into turning away from what, in a revolutionary context, is the most vital subject of all.
Secondly (with my apology for having gone on so long about history), Obama's foreign policy is infinitely more dangerous than George Bush's. Bush, a charming dimwit, was kept on a very short leash by the aristocracy. But the conquest of Iraq, which was undertaken both to seize its oil (now owned mostly by Exxon) and to destroy the only effective secular government in the Middle East (capitalism demands theocracy to facilitate maximum exploitation of the Working Class), would have occurred no matter who was president. Obama on the other hand is probably, in terms of IQ, amongst the most formidably intelligent presidents of all time; trouble is, he has sworn his intellect to the service of the most evilly ruthless Ruling Class in our species' history. He knows exactly what he is doing -- and indeed it is on that basis I now believe the primary Ruling Class purpose is to methodically reduce the world population, whether by famine, war or environmental apocalypse, and out of the ashes create essentially the same New Order of which Hitler dreamt.
Thirdly -- yes there was another point I wanted to make, but alas I have forgotten what it was.
Best,
Loren
Loren- I clicked the link and read the article. (WHEW) I love that line about "strengthening democracy around the globe through private enterprise and market-oriented reform." What the hell should democracy have to do with the friggin' marketplace anyway? Unless of course, democracy is up for sale, or already sold down the river.
Obama's foreign policy offers little improvement over George W's. Perhaps I'm too generous in this assessment. Obama says intervening in Ukraine's internal crisis is "not only for our own narrow self-interest, but for the interest of all"! The part of that statement before the comma is what it's really about: "our own narrow self interest"; translated: corporate self-interest. Everything after that comma, unsubstantiated rubbish.
I wasn't there when Obama said this and it is is an incomplete quote taken out of context, but I'd bet $$ Obama made no effort to explain exactly how U.S. meddling in Ukrainian affairs is "for the interest of all". And what does he mean by "all", anyway? All Americans? All Ukrainians? All humans on the planet? Or all fossil fuel companies or weapons manufacturers? Regardless, what makes the idea of "American exceptionalism" so dangerous is this delusional notion that we are above international law, lords & masters of the universe. Madeline Albright calls the U.S. the "indispensable nation" while Joseph Nye says this country is "bound to lead"… lead what? Here is the stuff that starts wars, that fascism thrives on.
At least twice in our lifetimes, we've come within a minute or two of a full-tilt nuclear war with Russia. Our entire existence has been in the shadows of this terrible threat. And frankly, Loren, with today's weaponry, I question whether we can survive a third world war. I don't know if I'd even want to survive it. - Aliceinwonderland
P.S. Loren, I bit the hook just now and googled Outside Agitator's Notebook. As always, a pleasure to peruse. I read your story about Truthout, censoring your searingly blunt assessment of the ACA, which I happen to agree with. So I want to thank you for revealing this unpleasant truth about some of these so-called "liberal" or "progressive" blogs. If they censored you, they most likely would censor me too, since I agree with everything you are saying and find it no more radical than my own perspective. I am hugely offended by censorship and view it as a bright red flag, unless it's some sort of hate speech or a particularly vile personal attack, of which yours was neither. Anyway dear comrade, thanks for saving me all that time and aggravation.
Branski, I think perhaps you are misunderstanding Senator Sanders. He is not simply shilling for the "better off". The point is, many middle class people are falling out of the middle class and into poverty. Senator Sanders is pointing that out, along with the source of the problem and what can be done about it. When Bernie refers to the middle class, it is upward mobility he is really talking about, which includes giving poor folks a ladder out of poverty. The more members of a society that are middle class, neither rich nor poor, the more stable the society is, which is something that ultimately, benefits everyone. - AIW
There's a lot Kend's article didn't say. There is a large endevour on the part of conservative politicians to privatize public services and to create crises in order to justify it. John Snobeden, former Ontario Minister of Education of the Progressive Conservative Party government of Mike Harris, said as much. The wait times are the main weakness and criticism of the Canadian Health System and a political football and are exaggerated by the analysts of those profiteers salivating over prospective privatization. The current conservative government might be hyping it, as well.
Wait times
Health Canada, a federal department, publishes a series of surveys of the health care system in Canada based on Canadians' first-hand experiences of the health care system.[55]
Although life-threatening cases are dealt with immediately, some services needed are non-urgent and patients are seen at the next-available appointment in their local chosen facility.
The median wait time in Canada to see a special physician is a little over four weeks with 89.5% waiting fewer than 90 days.[55]
The median wait time for diagnostic services such as MRI and CAT scans [56] is two weeks with 86.4% waiting fewer than 90 days.[55]
The median wait time for surgery is four weeks with 82.2% waiting fewer than 90 days.[55]
Another study by the Commonwealth Fund found that 57% of Canadians reported waiting 30 days (4 weeks) or more to see a specialist,[page needed] broadly in line with the current official statistics. A quarter (24%) of all Canadians waited 4 hours or more in the emergency room.[57][page needed]
Dr. Brian Day was once quoted as saying "This is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two-to-three years."[58] Day gave no source for his two to three years claim. The Canadian Health Coalition has responded succinctly to Day's claims, pointing out that "access to veterinary care for animals is based on ability to pay. Dogs are put down if their owners can’t pay. Access to care should not be based on ability to pay." [59] Regional administrations of Medicare across Canada publish their own wait time data on the internet. For instance, in British Columbia the wait time for a hip replacement is currently a little under ten weeks.[60] The CHC is one of many groups across Canada calling for increased provincial and federal funding for medicare and an end to provincial funding cuts as solutions to unacceptable wait times.[61]
Since 2002, the Canadian government has invested $5.5 billion to decrease wait times.[62] In April 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that all ten provinces and three territories would establish patient wait times guarantees by 2010. Canadians will be guaranteed timely access to health care in at least one of the following priority areas, prioritized by each province: cancer care, hip and knee replacement, cardiac care, diagnostic imaging, cataract surgeries or primary care.[63]
In a 2007 episode of ABC News's 20/20 titled "Sick in America", host John Stossel cited numerous examples of Canadians who did not get the health care that they needed.[64] The Fraser Institute [Conservative, Libertarian think tank] found that treatment time from initial referral by a GP through consultation with a specialist to final treatment, across all specialties and all procedures (emergency, non-urgent, and elective), averaged 17.7 weeks in 2005,[65] contradicting the Canadian government's 2007 report regarding itself.[66]
Kend kinda goes with the most Rightist hype, he once told me about the Canadian Post office crisis and how they stopped home delivery because the union was just taking everything and so on and so forth. But then I found out it was, let's just say, more nuanced than that http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/4307214-canada-post-s-invented-cris... It seems it was like I suspected that Canada Post was operating at a profit and was a remarkably well run operation but false crises were created to justify cutting service and laying off 8,000 workers.