dreamer_easy | (no subject)

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I'm dubious about opinion pieces which paint an entire part of the political spectrum with one brush, which The Republican Party Is Turning Into A Cult, over at the Huffington Post, arguably does. But it's worth skipping over those exasperated opening paragraphs to the meat of the matter:

"The US is the only major industrialized country that does not provide regular healthcare to all its citizens. Instead, they are required to provide for themselves -- and just under 50 million people can't afford the insurance. As a result, 18,000 US citizens die every year needlessly, because they can't access the care they require. That's equivalent to six 9/11s, every year, year on year. Yet the Republicans have accused the Democrats who are trying to stop all this death by extending healthcare of being "killers" -- and they have successfully managed to put them on the defensive.

The Republicans want to defend the existing system, not least because they are given massive sums of money by the private medical firms who benefit from the deadly status quo. But they can't do so honestly: some 70 percent of Americans say it is "immoral" to retain a medical system that doesn't cover all citizens. So they have to invent lies to make any life-saving extension of healthcare sound depraved."

(Emphases mine.)

(Bet you wish you hadn't got me interested in this stuff now! Sorry, guys...)

ETA: That 18,000 figure is solid - it's from the Institute of Medicine. And, as the comments folks are leaving here are making clear to me, that's just part of the picture - even if you can afford some insurance, you're still likely to be looking at huge medical bills. No wonder (and that Huff Post op-ed should have acknowledged this) there's a consensus in US politics that this is wrong and needs fixing.)

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The needless deaths are just part of the problem, as you say. The US health care system generally gets worse outcomes on almost every measure for a higher percentage of GDP than every other OECD country. There are huge numbers of people with chronic problems that receive very limited care - often chronic problems that keep them out of work so they can't get better health care, problems that under state health care would receive significant ongoing care. There are the issues about various self-employed people (especially creatives) who have a second job for no reason other than health care. There are people who can't change employer easily due to health care issues. Distortions of the economic system due companies carrying health care costs as a large percentage of labor costs (this is what made the US steel industry uncompetitive, for example). It doesn't even keep costs down for insurers - US health care has a culture of over-servicing and defensively testing in order to both defend themselves against litigation, and retain control over the process vs insurers who are always trying to reduce treatment levels.

The US commercial sector basically forced the US onto its current system decades ago in order to reduce worker mobility and make labor more dependent on employers. That turned out to be a bad idea for business, and a disaster for the country, as well as being basically immoral in its intent. Now no one benefits except basically insurers.

It is a disaster. The Republicans have decided to defend the existing system, and I think it is likely to be a disaster for them. Now they are probably committed to the wrong course -- if Obamas health care plan gets through, it is likely to be hugely popular by the end of a likely Obama second term, and as the party who opposed it, they will have given the Democrats a weapon to keep hammering them with.

The trouble is, the Democrats are incredibly adept at shooting themselves in the nuts -- although there's some growing resentment at the Rethugs within the greater majority of the Democratic group (and even amongst some of the Blue Dogs like Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who's the target of both sides now -- the teabaggers are riding her like a prize pony here in Tucson; Giffords' sympathies are straying away from the right as a result), which could mean some nigh-unto explosive action on this issue, rather than the folding that's been going on.

Part of the problem right now, though, is that Obama's tram pretty much blew any hope of controlling Big Pharma's greed by essentially agreeing that there'll be no price controls. Smarrrrt move.

Overall, then...a plague on both their houses.

the Democrats are incredibly adept at shooting themselves in the nuts

My mind (being the jumble of junk that it is) immediately recalled the Bloom County about hunting the elusive Liberal:

and even amongst some of the Blue Dogs like Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who's the target of both sides now -- the teabaggers are riding her like a prize pony here in Tucson

I have to confess to you that I found that completely incomprehensible!

IIRC from "The West Wing", a blue dog is a Democrat who generally votes Republican to stay in power.

Yup. (Seems to be quite a common term in the US political blogiverse.)

"Teabaggers" are the conservative anti-tax (at the fringe: most are anti-tax-hike) activists who want to re-enact the "Boston Tea Party" by sending teabags to their elected representatives. They're tagging along with the "deathers" (those convinced that Obama's healthcare proposal will lead to "healthcare rationing" and "death panels") because they see the public option as another excuse for the administration to take away more of their hard-earned money and use it for the benefit of society's "trash" (poor white, black, immigrant).

The best part of that is they called *themselves* teabaggers b/c part of their protest involved mailing out teabags in protest etc. Never mind the slang meaning of the term (you can, erm, look it up), even AFTER being told what it meant o.O

Political theater. You just can't make this shit up.

o.O

Hey, we didn't need a diagram! XD

Thank you.

I must admit, most of what I know of US politics and government comes from "The West Wing", so I have a fairly slanted view!

That said, any administration which gives a tax break to the highest earners has got something very wrong. (I currently work a little over one day out of five for the UK government, and would love to work my way up to the next tax bracket, which would take it closer to two days in five!)

... what's their position on "Children of Earth"?

A 'Blue Dog' is generally a Southern Democrat, who tends to straddle the fence on a lot of issues and leans heavily on the ideas of fiscal conservatism. Ironically, the last 8 years of absolute fiscal irreponsibility was totally acceptable to the GOP and said Blue Dogs until all of a sudden power changed hands in November.

The Republican stance on government is generally, "Government can't do anything competently! Just elect us, and we'll show you exactly why!" :P

I have a huge freaking Teabagger rally happening in my county on September 5th. I understand about 10,000 people are expected to be in attendance. Meanwhile, my little group of Democrats will be holding a press conference across the road from their rally point and trying to counter the ~~stupid~~misinformation with doctors and other speakers for the local press.

Wish us luck. I think we're going to need it.

GIVE 'EM HELL

Well, we're kind of hoping *not* to have hell. Hell would be bad, given what some of the rather less desirable elements have been up to lately. :P

Case in point: my wife, who hasn't worked for three years because of severe chronic depression and back problems, those specifically being degeneration in the lumbar spine. Last MRI, two years ago (when she was able to get into a system with a sliding scale) showed three herniated discs. She gets another MRI on Tuesday thanks to the fact that in the last annual open enrollment, I've gone to a high-deductible insurance plan where my employer pays my premium (and that's increasingly rare - except for the insurance companies themselves, I think my employer is one of only a handful in Chattanooga, TN to do that) and places the difference ($115) between the HDIP and old-fashioned PPO into a Health Savings Account. I can at least use that money on her. Cost of the MRI - $510, payable over 3 months (thankfully, as that total sum is 20% of my monthly take-home pay - the remaining $55 per month for this we can manage). Cost to carry her on my work insurance - about $600 a month, which the employer does *not* cover.

My own back continues to suffer, because that HDIP doesn't pay squat until I've paid $1200 out of pocket on me. Can't afford that. The idea is for the HSA funds to cover my deductible, which it would - except for the fact I have to worry about her. She's in much worse shape than I am. (We're both eligible for and have handicap tags on our cars.)

Bloody fucking hell. The more I learn about this shit, the more appalled I get, and I was pretty appalled in the first place.

Glad I could help appall you. I think...

I mean, honestly, I hear and see people over here ranting and railing about how they don't want our medical system to turn into socialized medicine, like the UK or Canada or Australia, and my only reply is, "Gee, I know people in the UK and Canada and Australia, and they *love* their health care system and wonder why we put up with ours."

Only in America... *sigh* I'd be happy for us to emigrate, if only for the better health care we'd get. (And frankly, no, that's not the only reason.)

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