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Universal Health Care: There is no need to wait until a new President is elected next year for the great national health care debate. It is underway right now, disguised as a routine extension of a state health care program for poor children -- SCHIP. In fact, this proposal is the thin edge of the wedge to achieve the longtime goal of government-supplied universal health insurance and the suffocation of the private system.

The Senate Finance Committee was scheduled to mark up tommorrow, but disagreement over the size of the program and how to pay for it has forced postponement. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) would triple SCHIP's current five-year cost of $25 billion to a level of $75 billion. That would grant federal largesse to an estimated 71 percent of all American children. Children in families making as much as $82,000 a year would become eligible, with states also continuing present coverage of adults under SCHIP, which is currently allowed in 14 states.


Democrats here find themselves constrained by their own "PAYGO" rules, because they must find the money to fund the expanded program. Senators of both parties want to raise tobacco taxes, but that well is not bottomless -- existing taxes have already reduced cigarette smoking. House Democrats, led by Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), want to take money from private elements of Medicare instituted by the Bush Administration.


A principal sponsor of the $75 billion program is Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), whose sweeping "HillaryCare" failed in 1994. The then-First Lady miniaturized her goals by limiting coverage to poor children in the SCHIP program, and Republicans, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in collaboration with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), accepted SCHIP as a fall-back position at a beginning outlay of $4 billion a year. It was the bargaining chip given President Bill Clinton (D) in return for his signing the Deficit Reduction Act of 1997.


SCHIP over the past decade has been a beloved program whose faults were overlooked, much like those of the Head Start school program. The federal government has consistently granted waivers to permit 14 states to cover adults under SCHIP, which now cost $5 billion a year. Minnesota led the way with 92 percent of money spent under the program going to adults.


The massive expansion of SCHIP fulfills Clinton's promise of "step by step" advancement toward universal health care. Her proposal to extend SCHIP to families at 400 percent of poverty (or $82,000 annually) has the cooperation of Hatch once again and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the Finance Committee's ranking Republican. The Republicans want a mere $30-billion increase, compared with Rockefeller's $50 billion, and that relatively minor dispute caused the postponement of the markup.


Stark's scheme of slashing the popular private Medicare program in order to pay for an expanded SCHIP would be a major step toward a government monopoly over all health insurance. Will children become accustomed to Washington's taking care of them? Will adults drop their children's private insurance? President George W. Bush may soon face the decision of whether or not to veto going into the election year.

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Step toward universal health care urged
Gillibrand says program could compete with industry
BY STEPHEN WILLIAMS Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Stephen Williams at 885-6705 or swilliams@dailygazette.net.

   Creating a new nonprofit health insurance program would be a way of establishing universal health care coverage in America, U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand said Wednesday.
   “I would support a program that people would buy into, something like Medicare,” Gillibrand, DHudson, said in a lunch speech to the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce at the Holiday Inn.
   A new entity similar to the existing Medicare program for the elderly could compete with the existing health insurance industry to cover the 47 million uninsured Americans, she said in response to an audience question.
   “It would be increased competition for the existing insurance structure,” she said afterward. “I would suspect that within five years, 70 percent of people would choose it because it would be cheaper.”
   Gillibrand was elected to represent the 20th Congressional District last November, defeating incumbent U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, despite the district’s largely rural and Republican makeup.
   Debate about ways to establish a national health care system that covers everyone has increased in recent years because of rising health care costs and a growing number of uninsured. The issue has also gained buzz from the popularity this summer of Michael Moore’s documentary on health maintenance organizations, “Sicko.”
   Gillibrand said being uninsured means people are relying on emergency rooms and hospitals for their health care, at a higher expense that primary care.
   The congresswoman suggested establishing a new program in which either businesses or individuals could buy health insurance from the nonprofit insurer for, say, five percent of their income.
   “Five percent I think is affordable,” she said.
   Gillibrand earlier this month voted in favor of the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act of 2007, which would expand medical access for children and senior citizens. But no legislation has been introduced to date on her nonprofit insurance idea.
   Gillibrand, who campaigned last year on strong opposition to the war in Iraq, told the audience of about 200 that progress on ending the war is being made in Congress, despite public frustration that it isn’t moving faster.
   “I support all legislation I can that has to do with timing,” she said, referring to setting deadlines for the Iraqi government to meet specific goals.
   “If you tell the Iraqis we are leaving, it will create a sense of urgency that will bring leaders together to reach compromises,” said Gillibrand, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who visited Iraq in early July.
   “I do see our [congressional] oversight and accountability having made progress,” she said. “The reason we’re making progress is because we’re coming to a consensus in this country.”
   Among appropriations achievements in her first seven months in office, she cited having secured $1.5 million for improvement to the Saratoga region’s electrical infrastructure. “It will help [Advanced Micro Devices] if they decide to come, but it will help the rest of us long before then.”
   AMD is planning to locate a new computer chip factory in the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta and Stillwater, and new electric transmission lines are among the needed infrastructure improvements.
   That money still needs Senate approval and could be vetoed by the president, she said. “Nothing is final,” she said.
   After the speech, Gillibrand said the bridge collapse last week in Minneapolis will bring a lot more attention and money to the nation’s infrastructure needs, and she’s backing a water bill that will bring district communities with crumbling water and sewer systems money to replace them.  

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“I would support a program that people would buy into, something like Medicare,”

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“Five percent I think is affordable,” she said.

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“Five percent I think is affordable,” she (Gillibrand) said.

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Presidential pay history
Date established Salary Salary in 2007
dollars

September 24, 1789             $25,000                $566,000
March 3, 1873                      $50,000                $865,000
March 4, 1909                      $75,000                $1,714,000
January 19, 1949                  $100,000              $875,000
January 20, 1969                 $200,000               $1,135,000
January 20, 2001                 $400,000               $471,000


The annual salary of each Representative is currently $165,200, though the Speaker of the House and the Majority and Minority Leaders earn more. The Speaker of the House earned $212,100 during the 109th Congress (January 4, 2005-January 3, 2007) while the Majority and Minority Leaders earned $183,500 (the same as the Leaders in the United States Senate). A cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) increase takes effect annually unless Congress votes to not accept it. Congress has the power to set members' salaries; however, the Twenty-Seventh Amendment prohibits a change in wages from taking effect in the same two-year term in which it is passed into law.

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No compassion in GOP vs. SCHIP
Froma Harrop is a nationally syndicated columnist.
Froma Harrop

   One of the less pleasant debates in Washington has been over SCHIP. The State Children’s Health Insurance Program covers children whose families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford their own coverage. In other words, it’s for the working stiffs.
   Both houses of Congress have passed bills that would expand SCHIP coverage. President Bush promises a veto and has sent out his helpers to smear the popular legislation.
   Writing in the Louisville Courier-Journal, Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell called it “a giant leap toward government-run health care” that also lets adults “leech” off a program designed for children. By “adults,” he means kids up to the age of 25.
   Could this be the same Mitch McConnell who periodically emits roars of approval for the socialized insurance scheme known as Medicare? As for the expensive new Medicare drug benefit, McConnell’s biggest beef centered on Democratic efforts to save billions by having the government negotiate for lower prices. If only the SCHIP bill had included a way to enrich drug companies ....
   Oklahoma Rep. John Sullivan complains that “there’s nothing in this bill that stops states from covering illegal aliens.” (Yes, just like there’s nothing stopping the Bush administration from enforcing the immigration laws.)
   Actually, the SCHIP legislation bars illegal immigrants from joining. Sullivan was referring to a provision that let states change rules on required documentation. This was deemed necessary because many of the applicants, largely poor whites and African-Americans, couldn’t find original birth certificates and don’t have passports. In any case, Social Security numbers will still be required.
   Illinois Rep. Dennis Hastert, the former House speaker, enlarged on this theme by arguing that the benefits allegedly going to illegal immigrants were being taken away from the elderly. Like many of his Republican colleagues, he’s sore that the bill cuts overpayments to private Medicare HMOs. (These plans have been receiving an average 12 percent more than the cost of care in traditional Medicare.)
   Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt told PBS’s “NewsHour” that the legislation would put families earning $80,000 on “public assistance.” The reality is that few families making that much would qualify. New York state wants a waiver to cover families of four making up to about $80,000 because the cost of living in New York City can be extraordinarily high. Nearly two-thirds of the apartments for sale are listed for over $450,000 — and that’s in the Bronx!
   Asked the inevitable question about why expanding government-run SCHIP is bad and expanding government-run Medicare is good, Leavitt responded that Medicare “was focused on those who are in need.”
   No, it wasn’t. It was focused on those over 65. Some, if not most, members of that group are in need, but Medicare covers senior citizens making $80,000 a week. Why don’t Republicans suggest an $80,000-ayear cutoff for Medicare benefits? Secretary Leavitt, are you there?
   The legislation does rely too much on massive increases in tobacco taxes. America’s largely low-income smokers shouldn’t have to carry that freight.
   Another valid concern about the SCHIP expansion is that it would prompt some families to drop private coverage. There are ways states can deter this, but in the end, if parents can obtain better coverage in the government program at less cost, that’s not so terrible. And shouldn’t families of moderate means be able to get coverage at least equal to that given the poor? Of course, the “crowd-out” argument could have been applied just as easily to Medicare.
   Heaven forfend that some barely middle-class families get in on a government program to insure their children. Is this what compassionate conservatism has come to? Yuck.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt told PBS’s “NewsHour” that the legislation would put families earning $80,000 on “public assistance.” The reality is that few families making that much would qualify. New York state wants a waiver to cover families of four making up to about $80,000 because the cost of living in New York City can be extraordinarily high. Nearly two-thirds of the apartments for sale are listed for over $450,000 — and that’s in the Bronx!

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Actually, the SCHIP legislation bars illegal immigrants from joining.

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Sullivan was referring to a provision that let states change rules on required documentation. This was deemed necessary because many of the applicants, largely poor whites and African-Americans, couldn’t find original birth certificates and don’t have passports.

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In any case, Social Security numbers will still be required.

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The legislation does rely too much on massive increases in tobacco taxes. America’s largely low-income smokers shouldn’t have to carry that freight.

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Heaven forfend that some barely middle-class families get in on a government program to insure their children. Is this what compassionate conservatism has come to? Yuck.

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No...there's a difference between compassion and conservatism.  Compassion iswhat people who want to hand out other people's stuff to people to help them, conservatism is when someone wants to protect their own stuff.  So, in other words, Ms. Harrop, they're as far apart as the east and west, or another way you would get it, they're as far apart as Democrats and Republicans on illegal immigration (for the most part, that does need to be qualified because of a few people that didn't read their party handbook).

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Universal health care nothing like 'socialism'  
First published: Saturday, August 18, 2007

The Times Union needs to do a better job calling out right-wing Republicans who continually raise the old "socialism" saw every time there's a new proposal for universal medical and mental health care. When President Harry Truman campaigned in 1948 on a government health insurance plank, this same group called it "socialism."

  
Yes, the same crowd that also called Social Security, unemployment insurance and the 40-hour workweek "socialistic."

Isn't it time the corporate-conservative, reactionary right did some new scripting?

The fact is genuine socialized medicine would be the nationalization of the hospitals, and putting every medical doctor, nurse and social worker on the government payroll. No one, absolutely no one, is proposing this.

A creditable universal health care plan would extend Medicare coverage, now for seniors older than 65, to all. I can count on my fingers the number of elderly people who think Medicare is a bad program.

The next time conservatives parrot "socialism," remind them they seem to have no problem at all with all kinds of big government handouts and giveaways to the corporations and business monopolies: tax breaks, tax abatements, low-interest development loans, enterprise zones, seven direct cash subsidies. This is so out of hand that sometimes the average citizen has trouble telling the difference between government and the corporations to whom they pander.

PERRY CHET KING Albany

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The next time conservatives parrot "socialism," remind them they seem to have no problem at all with all kinds of big government handouts and giveaways to the corporations and business monopolies: tax breaks, tax abatements, low-interest development loans, enterprise zones, seven direct cash subsidies. This is so out of hand that sometimes the average citizen has trouble telling the difference between government and the corporations to whom they pander

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I can count on my fingers the number of elderly people who think Medicare is a bad program

Quoted from JoAnn

.

My mom has Senior Blue which is a spin off of Medicare. And although she has had no complaints to the present, there are only a handful of doctors that will accept her insurance and her perscriptions must be approved.

My mother in law has Senior Blue but she does have more medical condiitons than my mom. She has had stints placed in both of her arteries and the doctor prescribed Plavix for her. This perscription costs approx $300/mo. Senior Blue will not cover this drug, so she will not take them.

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August 1, 2007

Senator Clinton Calls for Passage of Bill to Enable More Children to Benefit from the Children's Health Insurance Program

Urges Support for Clinton Amendment to Extend Family and Medical Leave for Families of Wounded Soldiers

(Editorial note: I thought we were getting away from these sort of amendments once we cleaned out the "sewage" that had been in DC)

Washington, DC - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton today spoke on the floor of the Senate, urging passage of legislation to cover more children under the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). She also called on her colleagues to support bipartisan legislation, cosponsored by Senators Dole, Mikulski, Graham, Kennedy and Brown, that she has introduced as an amendment to the SCHIP bill that would extend the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) for up to six months for spouses and parents of soldiers who have been injured in combat. The amendment would enact a key recommendation of the Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors.

The following is a transcript of Senator Clinton's remarks on the Senate floor:

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Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Washington for her usual, very thorough, and persuasive statement on the floor about the need for flexibility in this important program and the recognition that healthcare, like everything else, costs differently depending upon where you are in the country. And I thank the Senator from Washington for reinforcing that important point.

But the larger point is this: today in this Congress, we are on the verge of providing the greatest expansion of health coverage for our children since the creation of the Children's Health Insurance Program a decade ago. I believe--and I don't imagine anyone in this chamber would argue--with the belief that every child deserves a healthy start in life. Certainly, we try to provide that healthy start for our own children and we give a lot of lip service to the idea that we should provide it for all children, yet far too many children in our nation -- more than nine million -- do not have healthcare.

I was very proud to help create the State Children's Health Insurance Program during the Clinton Administration, working on this legislation during my time as First Lady. And after the bill passed, I worked to get the word out and try to help more children and their parents understand what this new program could mean for them and encourage them to sign up in the first few years. In the Senate, I have continued that effort, fighting to ensure healthcare for children has the priority in our budget that it deserves.

So today, thanks to the work of so many, CHIP provides health insurance for six million children. Now, in New York alone, almost 400,000 children benefit from this program every month.

With the legislation that Chairman Baucus and Senators Grassley, Rockefeller and Hatch helped to craft, an additional 50,000 children in my state of New York will have access to health insurance coverage. This legislation will also help enroll many of the 300,000 children in New York who live in families that are already eligible because their families make less than $52,000 a year--250 percent of the poverty level for a family of four. In total across our country, 3.2 million children who are uninsured will gain coverage. That will reduce the number of uninsured children by one third over the next five years.

Now, Mr. President, if we can afford tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and tax cuts for oil companies that are making record profits, I certainly think we can find it in our hearts and budget to help cover millions of children who deserve a healthy start.

I want to be clear, if the president vetoes this bill, he will be vetoing healthcare for more than three million children. And once again the President will have put ideology, not children, first.

Earlier this year, I was proud to introduce legislation with Congressman John Dingell to reauthorize and expand CHIP, and I'm very pleased that a number of the ideas in our bill are included in this legislation, such as cutting the red tape and bolstering incentives to get eligible children into the program.

The legislation also improves access to private coverage and expands access to benefits like mental health and dental coverage. This is so important.

And I really applaud the Finance Committee under Chairman Baucus' leadership. Mental health and dental coverage are too often left out when we talk about healthcare.

Well, not far from where I'm standing, in the state of Maryland, last year, a young boy, Deamonte Driver, had a toothache. And his mother sought help for him to be able to get dental care. She called dentists, but they weren't taking any more children on Medicaid or on CHIP, and then she got help from a legal aid group that helped poor families. They called around, and I think they called 27 or 28 dentists who said, look, our quota for poor kids is filled.

Well, Deamonte Driver's toothache turned into an abscess. And the abscess burst, infecting his bloodstream, and he ended up in the hospital where doctors valiantly tried to save his life from the brain infection that resulted from the abscessed tooth that had not been treated. This young man died.

And when one thinks about the loss of a child over something that started as a toothache, it is heartbreaking, but it is not by any means an isolated case. And at the end of Deamonte's life, the state of Maryland and the United States government ended up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for emergency care, for intensive care, for life support to no avail, for want of $80-100 to find a dentist who would care for Deamonte.

So, I really commend the authors of this bipartisan bill for their work and for bringing forward a practical, fiscally responsible compromise that will allow us to reauthorize this important program and expand coverage. And I'm eager to see that it is signed into law.

I am disappointed, however, that the bill we are considering this week fails to include the Legal Immigrant Children's Health Improvement Act, which I introduced with Senator Snowe. Senator Snowe and I have been working on this for a number of years. This bipartisan bill would give states the flexibility to provide the same Medicaid and CHIP coverage to low income, legal immigrant children and pregnant women as is provided to U.S. Citizens. I will underscore that, we are talking about legal immigrant children and legal pregnant women.

I really believe that we should provide this flexibility to states because the current restrictions prevent thousands of legal immigrant children and pregnant women from receiving preventive health services and treatment for minor illnesses before they become serious. Families who are unable to access care for their children have little choice but to turn to emergency rooms. And this hurts children and pregnant women, plain and simple. And I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to lift the ban on Medicaid and CHIP coverage for low income, legal immigrant children and pregnant women.

I also am disappointed that some of my colleagues have expressed concern about states like New York, New Jersey and others that have chosen to cover children above 300 percent of the poverty level. The legislation we are considering on the floor would allow New York to continue doing this and receive the CHIP matching rate. We should not punish children and their families who live in high cost areas and who need healthcare coverage. And I encourage my colleagues to vote against any effort to undermine the extension of healthcare in high cost states where it costs more--as we heard from Senator Cantwell and her statement on the floor--to provide the same coverage and treatment one would get elsewhere in our country.

So, I'm proud that we are debating a bill to expand healthcare to 3.2 million children. But the fact is, there should be no debating the moral crisis of nine million children without healthcare; no debating the moral urgency of strengthening our healthcare system for children and all Americans. Ultimately, Mr. President, the answer will be in a cost-effective, quality-driven, uniquely-American program that provides healthcare to every single man, woman, and child in our country. But until we get to that point, it is imperative that the Congress pass this bill before we go out for recess and send it to the president with the hope that he will sign it into law.

I would also like to mention another issue we urgently need to address. Last week, the bipartisan Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors -- chaired by former Senator Bob Dole and former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala -- issued its final report on the need to reform the medical care that our troops and veterans receive.

The commission found, in an excellent report—it's not one of these commission reports that just take up a lot of space on the shelf; it’s very pointed with six specific recommendations—and it found that one of the most important ways to improve care for injured servicemembers is to improve support for their families. That's why I introduced a bipartisan bill, the Military Family and Medical Leave Act with Senators Dole, Mikulski, Graham, Kennedy and Brown, to implement a key recommendation of the commission. And we have offered this as an amendment to the CHIP legislation.

The Family and Medical Leave Act was the first bill signed into law under the Clinton Administration. It came about because of a lot of hard work led by Senator Dodd here in the Senate and others, and it has proven to be enormously successful, helping more than 60 million men and women who try to balance the demands of work and family. I believe it is time to strengthen the Act for military families who find themselves in a very difficult situation. They should be given up to six months of leave to care for a loved one who has sustained a combat-related injury.

Currently, these spouses, parents, and children can receive only 12 weeks of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. All too often, this is just not enough time, as injured servicemembers grapple with traumatic brain injuries, severe physical wounds and other problems upon returning from Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

In fact, 33 percent of active duty, 22 percent of reservists, and 37 percent of retired servicemembers reported to the commission that a family member or close friend had to leave their homes for extended periods of time to help them in the hospital. About 20 percent said family or friends gave up jobs to be with them to act as their caregiver.

This is a step that we can take immediately that will make a real difference. Many of us have been to hospitals here in our own country—Walter Reed, Brook Army Medical Center-- and other places in the world, like Landstuhl in Germany, where we've seen our wounded warriors. There is no doubt that having the support, assistance and comfort of a family member during that process when a young man or woman who has served our country is brought from the battlefield to the hospital, makes a big difference in recovery and rehabilitation. I think all of us agree that not only do our men and women in uniform make tremendous sacrifices on our behalf, so do their families. And as a nation, we have a duty to provide them with the support that they deserve to have.

So, Mr. President, expanding access to healthcare for children and providing better support for our military families comes down to basic values that we as Americans hold dear. I think we all agree every child deserves a healthy start and every man or woman who wears the uniform of our country deserves more than words of support. The promise of America is rooted in these values, and I am very proud to support the bipartisan legislation expanding healthcare for children. And I urge my colleagues to join me and the Senators from both sides of the aisle who are supporting our military families who are caring for those who have been injured in service to our country.

And, Mr. President, finally, we hope that on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue there will be a change of heart, that the president will decide to sign this legislation and relieve the burdens of ill health and inadequate access to healthcare that haunt the lives of so many American families. Mr. President, please support this effort in every way possible by signing the legislation that will be sent to you. I yield the floor.

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Health care returns as force in presidential politics
BY NANCY BENAC The Associated Press

   WASHINGTON — It’s been 14 years since first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health care reform plan sank like a stone, swallowed by fears of a big-government power grab. In the years since, wary presidential candidates at first avoided the issue altogether, then gingerly dipped one toe, then another, back into the pool.
   This year, no self-respecting presidential candidate wants to be without a health care overhaul plan, and talk about “universal coverage” is back.
   There is a stark difference between the medicine being prescribed by Democrats and Republicans.
   Democratic candidates argue it is the government’s job to make sure everyone has health insurance they cannot lose. Republicans are pushing more limited incentives and subsidies to help people obtain affordable coverage.
   Both sides are trying to steer clear of anything resembling the 1993 plan. Clinton — this time the candidate rather than the spouse — comes out with her own plan Monday, adamant that “we’re going to get it done this time.”
   Democrats in general and the New York senator in particular approach the debate this time with better bedside manners than in the last major go-around.
   Even defenders of Clinton’s 1993 effort to change the system say the process scared the patient — namely, middle-income people who may want a better way, but have insurance and do not want to step into the unknown with health care.
   Those fears were embodied by a middle-class couple named Harry and Louise, characters in an advertising campaign sponsored by the health insurance industry. The ads, targeting mainly opinionmakers in Washington and New York, showed the couple fretting over having to get their insurance through a new “billion-dollar bureaucracy” that would include mandatory health insurance purchasing alliances.
   This time, the candidates are all “being very careful to say that, look, if you have health insurance today, you can keep it,” said Kenneth Thorpe, a professor of health policy at Emory University. He has helped the top four Democrats crunch the numbers of their plans and was involved in Clinton’s 1993 effort.
   “The Harry and Louise ad was one of those things where people were concerned that people have to move from what they have to a plan they didn’t really know.” Thorpe said. “The lesson is, the less disruptive you make it, it makes it very difficult for Harry and Louise to come out and criticize it.”
   Already, the GOP candidates are branding Democratic proposals a step on the road to socialized medicine while they offer incremental steps such as tax breaks to expand coverage and make it more affordable.
   “Let me tell ya, if we don’t do it, the Democrats will,” warns Republican Mitt Romney. “And if the Democrats do it, it’ll be socialized medicine. It will be governmentmanaged care. It’ll be what’s known as Hillary-care or Barack Obamacare or whatever you want to call it.”
   Polls indicate health coverage ranks high with voters as a concern and that people are willing to pay higher taxes to ensure those without coverage get it.
   Two-thirds in a Pew poll this year supported government-financed health insurance for all. But that is absent the sticky details of how it would work or how much it would cost.
   Robert Blendon, who directs the Harvard Program on Public Opinion and Health and Social Policy, said the current climate favors Democratic activism on health care but that could change quickly if the insured believe there is a threat to what they have.
   “The Democrats have tried to tone it down,” Blendon said, and for the most part are trying to avoid alienating insurers, physicians and hospitals. John Edwards, whose plan is the boldest among the top tier of candidates because it mandates universal coverage, has not been shy about taking on the industry.
   “But I think you will find Clinton reaching out to these groups with plans that many find quite acceptable,” Blendon said.
   Clinton has said she wants to “figure out how we provide universal health care without putting billions more into the system.” Her goal has been universal coverage in eight years.
   And what might Harry and Louise think of all this?
   The health insurance association that sponsored the ads has since merged into a new trade group called America’s Health Insurance Plans. Chief executive Karen Ignagni strikes a conciliatory tone, saying there is greater consensus this time to move toward universal coverage — and a better understanding of the political realities in getting there.
   “We’re in a different place than we were,” she said. “I think that both sides are going to have to be very, very careful.”
   Democrats, she said, look at the Clinton-era debacle and know they have to be careful to avoid overreaching. Republicans, likewise, know they should not underreach, she said.
   “The sweet spot in the middle is trying to create a workable program that individuals who currently have coverage believe is the right direction and will not cause them to lose coverage.”

Then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, holding a copy of the Clinton health-care plan, kicks off a threestate sales campaign during a visit to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in this Oct. 28, 1993, file photo

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Polls indicate health coverage ranks high with voters as a concern and that people are willing to pay higher taxes to ensure those without coverage get it.

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Main Entry: 1in·sur·ance  
Pronunciation: \in-ˈshu̇r-ən(t)s also ˈin-ˌ\
Function: noun
Date: 1651
1 a: the business of insuring persons or property b: coverage by contract whereby one party undertakes to indemnify or guarantee another against loss by a specified contingency or peril c: the sum for which something is insured
2: a means of guaranteeing protection or safety

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Main Entry: 1care  
Pronunciation: \ˈker\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English caru; akin to Old High German kara lament, Old Irish gairm call, cry, Latin garrire to chatter
Date: before 12th century
1: suffering of mind : grief
2 a: a disquieted state of mixed uncertainty, apprehension, and responsibility b: a cause for such anxiety
3 a: painstaking or watchful attention b: maintenance
4: regard coming from desire or esteem5: charge, supervision
6: a person or thing that is an object of attention, anxiety, or solicitude

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Polls indicate health coverage ranks high with voters as a concern and that people are willing to pay higher taxes to ensure those without coverage get it.

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Tax gambling to pay for health care

I wonder if another source of revenue, along with taxing cigarettes, could help pay for health care.
What if we tried a federal “Powerball” lottery, and each state held “Powerball” lotteries, and all taxes on OTB, lotteries, slot machines went into a general health care fund?
Then, for “a dollar and a dream,” the dream might be health care for all.
PEG LAPO
Delanson

Quoted from Admin

http://www.dailygazette.com

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Doctors Group Applauds Bush Veto

Thursday, October 18, 2007 7:47 PM

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons issued the following statement from Kathryn Serkes, director of policy and public affairs, in response to the House of Representative’s failure today to override President Bush’s veto of a bill to reauthorize and expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP):


“We support the President’s veto of this massive, messy bill that would have spent almost as much money on doctors and seniors as it would have on children’s medical care.




“This bill is an example of the worst of political sausage-making. In the old joke, we’re warned that we really don’t want to know what’s chopped up and thrown in the pot to get the end product.


“This bill is like an extremely expensive sausage filled with mystery meats that have nothing to do with delivering medical care to poor children who have no other means to get it. And no one has bothered to analyze the contents.




“Some physician and other groups are cynically using the cry ‘for the kids’ to advance their own agendas and self-interests when in reality, about HALF – or more than $10 billion a year -- is diverted to doctors and seniors.


“The numbers tell the story: according to the AMA’s action alerts, over ten years about $117 billion was allocated to doctors and seniors, with $129 billion for children’s programs. It includes almost $70 billion for physician Medicare payments, a pet project of the American Medical Association; about $50 billion for Medicare beneficiaries; and cuts physician-owned hospitals off at the knees, a blow to patients of all ages but a big win for the American Hospital Association.


“Also, it does such a bad job of targeting assistance to truly needy children that it isn’t even on the radar screen. About 60 percent of children currently eligible already have private insurance, and more than 75 percent eligible under this expansion already have private insurance.


“Since so many families well above the poverty level are included in this bill, a much simpler and effective strategy to get them affordable insurance would be to allow them to purchase insurance policies outside their own states. This would open up the markets for families held hostage by states with massive mandates and regulatory costs that drive up insurance premiums, such as New Jersey.


“Rather than sue the federal government to force the SCHIP reauthorizations, governors and attorneys general would do well to consider the model legislation passed this summer by the state legislator members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) called ‘Health Care Choice Act for States.’ This simple act would increase the buying power of millions of SCHIP-eligible families without burdening the taxpayers or paying off the doctors.”

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“Rather than sue the federal government to force the SCHIP reauthorizations, governors and attorneys general would do well to consider the model legislation passed this summer by the state legislator members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) called ‘Health Care Choice Act for States.’ This simple act would increase the buying power of millions of SCHIP-eligible families without burdening the taxpayers or paying off the doctors.”

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U.S. must provide free health care for all citizens

    It is unbelievable to me that so many countries provide free universal health care to every citizen, regardless of income level or employment status, and the United States does not. If I were running for, or currently in office, I would be embarrassed by our nation. How can Cuba afford to give their (and our) citizens what we cannot?
    I believe that my fellow Americans would be willing to pay more in taxes for our entire country to be provided with health care.
    I cannot believe the cowardly ways of our government, making Americans fear them and allowing the citizens of their country to be harmed and abandoned while they receive ridiculous amounts of money for their continued silence. How can you sleep at night knowing that your constituents are being thrown out on the streets every day because they can’t pay their medical bills? It’s because they’re not voting.
    Things need to change.
    DANIELLE MARION
    Schenectady

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U.S. must provide free health care for all citizens

Quoted from Shadow

There are quite a few people who don't have health-care but could afford it but prefer to spend that money on other things like boats, cars, vacations, and other toys that they consider more important than health-care.

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EDITORIALS More evidence of a sick health system

    Anyone doubting the need for an overhaul of this nation’s health care system should have had those doubts erased by two events last week.
    In one, the Schenectady County Legislature voted to accept a payment of $57,000 from Bristol-Myers-Squibb to settle a lawsuit over $15 million in fraudulent Medicaid drug overcharges. In the other, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo launched a suit against the state’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, claiming it had defrauded customers who use doctors or hospitals out of its regular network by intentionally understating the value of “reasonable and customary” charges that determine how much those customers subsequently have to pay out of pocket to make up the difference.
    Both cases illustrate the tendency of players in this industry to inflate or deflate the value of their products and services, depending on how it suits them.
    When one is trying to extract money from a payer — as Bristol-Myers-Squibb was with the county — the idea is to overstate the product’s price. That’s what Bristol-Myers-Squibb and dozens of other drug companies apparently did, lying to Schenectady County (among others) about how much pharmacists had been paying for their drugs. They did that to inflate the prices they subsequently negotiated with the counties.
    The settlement with Bristol-Myers-Squibb is the first of what county officials hope will be scores; it sued a total of 77 drug companies, alleging similar overcharges, two years ago, engaging a law firm that has had considerable success with comparable cases.
    The attorney general’s case illustrates what happens when the tables are turned: when the company is doing the paying. Here, it was in the insurance company’s interest to claim that the “reasonable and customary” charges in the (out-of-plan) doctor’s geographic area were far lower than what he or she billed. That way, it could force the customer to make up a greater part of the difference, rather than getting stuck with it itself.
    What’s going on — in both of these disputes, as in most others involving health-care providers and insurance companies these days — seems like one big game. Everyone’s trying to make more money, or spend less, and is rigging the rules as they see fit (or can get away with) in the process. One can only imagine how much effort — time and money — is going into this game, and how much better the country’s health-care needs would be served, and for how much less money, if it were to cease. Unfortunately, without a universal, single-payer system, there’s probably no way that it ever will.

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Health care should be provided to all citizens

First published: Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Raymond Kidalowski's Feb. 15 letter warns readers that universal health care will lead to restricted health care and higher taxes, and thus should be abandoned. He cites figures from the Times Union detailing the higher amounts we spend in the U.S. per person on health compared to Europe and Japan, and states the excess cost cannot be due to "greedy insurance companies."
He is only partially correct. In fact, Medicare spends less than 5 cents per dollar on overhead (administrative) costs; private insurers spend 20 cents or more. This money covers, among other things, executive salaries. A switch to a Medicare system would immediately save about 15 percent of health care expenditures in the U.S.
     
Mr. Kidalowski thinks this would lead to restricted care: For example, grandma will no longer get a hip replacement. Currently, most hip replacements occur in the elderly and are, in fact, paid for by Medicare.
He also cites losing access to higher-priced drugs. Europe and Japan pay far, far less than we do in the U.S. for the same drugs. Why? Because their universal systems are able to bargain with the pharmaceuticals for lower prices; we see this with our own VA system (another government program).
Mr. Kidalowski seems to think private insurers do not restrict access. As a physician, I have firsthand experience that this absolutely is not the case. Every day I come across instances where a patient's private insurer has placed restrictions on procedures or drugs I wish to prescribe.
Part of the overall cost for health care in the U.S. includes the uninsured. They ultimately end up in emergency rooms and hospitals, where delayed treatment becomes even more expensive. Hospitals, and ultimately taxpayers and the privately insured, bear the cost.
Will taxes go up with universal care? There would be a shift in cost to a more efficient system: Instead of paying your insurer $500 to $1,000 a month for coverage, that money would be a tax. But think about it: We have "socialized" police, fire departments, highway construction and education. Why should basic health care not be something we provide to all our citizens?
MATTHEW LEINUNG, M.D. Menands

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Health care should be provided to all citizens

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True socialized medicine proven not to work
First published: Monday, March 10, 2008

I hope Matthew Leinung, M.D. ("Health care should be provided to all citizens," Feb. 27) practices medicine better than he understands political science definitions.
He argues we already have "socialized" police, fire departments, highway construction and education, so why not health care? This is not true. None of the aforementioned programs is funded and administered by the federal government, which must be the case for a program to be "socialized." Police and fire departments are not divisions of a federal agency, but instead are local agencies run by city and state governments. Highway construction is also not federal, unless it is a federally owned highway. Education is also handled on a local level, despite many federal and state regulations.
     
Medicare is not more efficient -- they just hide their figures all over the federal budget, making it impossible to measure apples-to-apples. Our current system may be broken, but that does not mean we should adopt another proven broken system.
"Medicare for all," or a mandatory federal health care program, is socialist, inefficient and unconstitutional.
CHAD CURRIN Glenville

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Family questions hospital's treatment refusal
Pamela Cowan, The Leader-Post
Published: Thursday, March 06, 2008
An elderly Leader man, who died in a Medicine Hat hospital, was refused treatment in a Calgary hospital because he was a Saskatchewan resident, family members believe.

Jack Hintz, 85, died on Feb. 22 -- a day after Medicine Hat physician Dr. Alison Cameron requested that he be transferred to Calgary for hip surgery. Doctors considered it a high-risk procedure because Hintz had also suffered a heart attack.

"Nobody has ever heard of anything so ridiculous," said Doreen Miskiw, Hintz's daughter. "We don't want this to happen to somebody else. Our health system needs to smarten up. Health care is universal and it shouldn't matter what province you come from, you should be accepted. It's upsetting that Dad didn't get that chance. He may not have made it but nobody knows."

However Don Stewart, the Calgary Health Region's manager of communications, said that was "absolutely not" the case.

According to a statement issued on Wednesday, the Calgary Health Region recommended that the patient be transferred to a Saskatchewan hospital "based on ensuring this patient had access to the most immediate and appropriate medical care."

In a phone interview, Stewart said the recommendation was made because Calgary's three adult acute care sites on Feb. 21 were over capacity.

"We had 18- to 24-hour approximate wait times so this patient would have potentially ended up in a hallway or an area that's been created as a holding unit because there were a number of patients waiting for admission into the hospitals," Stewart said.

On Feb. 21, Hintz was transferred from Leader's hospital to Medicine Hat for surgery on his fractured hip. Cameron said it's routine for patients who live in towns along the Saskatchewan-Alberta border to be transferred to Medicine Hat for specialized care.

"He arrived sometime in the middle of the night and the next morning when we did some tests we discovered that the patient had likely had a heart attack during the process of falling and breaking his hip," she said.

Hintz was examined by a Medicine Hat orthopedic surgeon who then consulted an anesthetist, Cameron said.

"They both felt that because of the heart attack that he was too high risk for us to do any surgery on him in Medicine Hat," she said. "Then it was determined that he should be transferred to Calgary."

At the surgeon's request, Cameron phoned the Southern Alberta Referral & Co-ordination Centre, which handles transfer requests to Calgary. Cameron outlined the man's condition to a receptionist and then to a nurse. An hour later, Cameron spoke to a Calgary orthopedic surgeon who agreed to take the patient.

"Knowing the circumstances of the fractured hip and the heart attack, he knew that he was too high-risk for Medicine Hat," Cameron said. "Then we just had to wait for the OK, because we don't want to call the air ambulance until we're sure that the bed is available. That's what we were waiting for, but about four hours later SARCC phoned and left a message that they weren't taking the patient because he was from Saskatchewan."

Cameron phoned the centre back to ask why the referral was refused.

"They told me that they would not be taking the gentleman because he was from Saskatchewan, they had a bed shortage, and the beds that they had available were going to go to Albertans," Cameron said. "I asked if there was some way to appeal this decision and they told me that if my hospital administrator talked to their hospital administrator perhaps they could review the decision at that point in time."

In the meantime, Hintz's condition worsened and he was transferred to the Medicine Hat hospital's intensive care unit where he died.

Cameron said there's no way to predict if Hintz would have survived had he been transferred to Calgary.

"The basic principles of the Canada Health Act are that health care is portable -- you can go to any province and receive health care, no matter where you're from," she said. "That's a basic principle and that didn't work in this instance."

The media statement issued by the Calgary Health Region ends stating: "Given the nature of the patient's medical condition, SARCC provided a clear recommendation to Medicine Hat medical staff that they should contact the Saskatchewan Co-ordination Centre to request the patient be transferred to an appropriate hospital in that province. This action was considered to be the most effective way for the patient to receive the fastest possible medical treatment."

Stewart added that the Calgary Health Region did 1,300 surgeries for non-Albertans last year and 750 day procedures.

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"Knowing the circumstances of the fractured hip and the heart attack, he knew that he was too high-risk for Medicine Hat," Cameron said. "Then we just had to wait for the OK, because we don't want to call the air ambulance until we're sure that the bed is available. That's what we were waiting for, but about four hours later SARCC phoned and left a message that they weren't taking the patient because he was from Saskatchewan."

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Country needs national health insurance plan

    Our area needs to get more involved in speaking up for health care issues. We need to get Congress to pass H.R. 676 [the National Health Insurance Bill].
    I have come across so many people in our area, including myself, with no health insurance, and it isn’t right. People like me would have had their health issues taken care of years ago if we lived in other countries. We need daily medication; and do we get it? No, I can’t afford it.
    The insurance and drug companies don’t care about us — all they care about is money. There is no need for a CEO of an insurance company to be making $22 million. His salary alone could pay for a lot of health care. We need to all pull together and sign the petitions — there’s one on the Michaelmoore.com  site.
Our government should care about all of us, not just the rich. We come together only when a major event happens, than years pass by and everyone has forgotten who was involved. Why can’t the government take care of everyone? Universal health care works in other countries.
The people live longer and healthier lives, also. It doesn’t matter what political party you are in, we all need health care, and we all deserve to live.
SUE MIZEJEWSKI
Niskayuna

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Unconstitutional care? Tell the White House
First published: Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Chad Currin of Glenville ("True socialized medicine proven not to work," letter, March 3) might want to commiserate with his senators and representatives at the federal level -- even the White House crew -- about the inefficiency of the federal health care program thrust upon them by virtue of their service to their country.
I am sure they would be interested to hear that it is unconstitutional.
     
Perhaps if they were informed that it was socialist as well, they might give it up in favor of becoming insured by one of the health insurance companies the rest of us have to deal with.
ANITA BAYLEY Feura Bush

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Socially responsible not the same as 'socialism'
First published: Wednesday, March 19, 2008

In his March 10 letter, Chad Currin makes a dubious distinction between federally funded programs (he calls these "socialist") and programs funded by local governments (he calls these "fire, education and highways"). That is stretching the definition. Fire, education and highways all have massive elements of federal funding within them, so what is the distinction?
Importantly, Mr. Currin uses the federal-local distinction to attack national funding for health care. That is his real message. He says "socialized" medicine is broken.
     
Well, whatever we have in this country is broken even more. Every industrialized country in Europe outdoes the United States in major health indicators of infant mortality and population longevity.
The United States ranks a disappointing 32nd in infant mortality, based on U.N. statistics. And the U.S. comes in at only 29th in longevity, as measured by CIA figures. These poor marks are paid for by 15 percent of our gross national product -- the highest payment for health in the world.
We are paying more and getting less. And do not forget the 47 million people who have no health insurance of any kind. When they finally get critically sick, we will have to pay for them.
There are many ways to fund universal health care. Canada and Great Britain run governmental health care systems. They provide very decent care. Germany and the Netherlands operate health care through mandatory health insurance, similar to our automobile insurance.
There are many combinations of these systems, most of which provide better and more efficient health care than the current system. Our task should be to build on the current U.S. health care system and tailor a universal funding program that will fit the American experience. And we should stop hurling around terms like socialism, when all we need is some common sense and a sense of social responsibility.
DALE ORDES Ballston Spa

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Universal health care isn't socialized medicine
First published: Monday, March 24, 2008

Referring to the March 11 letter regarding socialized medicine: There is considerable misinformation in this country regarding the meaning of "socialized medicine," a term used by opponents of single-payer health insurance to scare people.
"Socialized medicine" is a system in which physicians and other medical personnel are government employees and medical care is provided free of charge. There is consequently no need for health insurance. Communist countries had socialized medicine. In the United States, such a system exists on a limited scale for veterans.
     
Countries with universal health coverage systems like France or Canada do not have socialized medicine. If they did, they would not need to have health insurance at all. They have single-payer insurance systems in which everyone pays a percentage of his/her income, thereby making universal coverage possible. In the United States, such a system exists, again on a limited scale: it is Medicare.
Almost nobody is advocating that the United States adopt socialized medicine. Proponents of reforms simply want to make health insurance coverage universal in order to reduce the enormous financial and medical inefficiencies of the American health care system and eliminate its rationing of care through unaffordable insurance premiums.
JEAN-FRANCOIS BRIERE Albany

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In the United States, such a system exists, again on a limited scale: it is Medicare.

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ALBANY
Doctors, medical students call for national health insurance
BY JILL BRYCE Gazette Reporter

    A handful of physicians and medical students from Albany Medical Center and College voiced support for national health insurance Tuesday, saying it would save money and result in more efficient and better health care.
    The group met at Albany Medical College to discuss a study released Tuesday that shows a majority of U.S. physicians — three-fifths — now support national health insurance.
    The study was published in Tuesday’s Annals of Internal Medicine, a leading medical journal. It showed that 59 percent of doctors support government legislation to establish national health insurance, while 32 percent oppose it and 9 percent are neutral. The study was done by researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
    The findings reflect a shift in physicians’ attitudes compared with an identical survey five years ago.
    Dr. Jennifer Pearce, director of pediatric hematology oncology at Albany Medical Center, who treats children with cancer, said seeing families with no health care for their children or themselves go through the anguish of poor medical care is something that is “not American, not normal and not healthy.”
    “If all our children in this country had single-payer health care and got good health care and got proactive and preventative care, we would see a lot less of the adult diseases we see today,” said Pearce. “It would be a huge savings to have single-payer health care,” she said.
    Pearce said about 30 percent of a physician’s time is spent on forms, appeals and paperwork involved with thousands of different insurance plans.
    “A lot of our time, effort and intelligence is wasted with the idiosyncrasies of different health care plans — time, effort and brain power that could help patients have better lives and healthier lives.”
    Pearce wasn’t always a proponent of single-payer health care. She has relatives in England and 20 years ago their health care was horrendous, she said, but the kinks were worked out and there is now a far more uniform system in England than in the United States.
    Pearce said she did not know of one physician at Albany Medical Center who is not in favor of it.
    Such a health plan would mean a single federally administered social insurance fund that guarantees health care coverage for everyone, much like Medicare does for seniors. It would eliminate or reduce the role of private insurance companies.
    “I encourage everyone to be behind this as an absolute necessity for the American health care system,” she said.
    Dr. Paul Sorum, chair of the local chapter of the Physicians for a National Health Program, said the study reflects the attitudes of most doctors and it’s an opinion that is growing.
    All patients would be covered and physicians would be reimbursed for service they provide to patients, not according to whether the patient has insurance or what type of insurance, said Sorum, a professor of internal medicine and pediatrics and a primary care physician for children and adults in Latham.
    Decisions about care would be done largely on clinical grounds.
    “There would be far less interference in the day-to-day clinical decision-making under a single-payer system than there is under the private insurers, who are increasingly reaching into the examining room to decide what kind of care is best for you and your particular case,” said Sorum.
    Rules would be simple, uniform, transparent, public and well known, he said, and the patient and physician would no longer have to deal with the changing rules of the private health care system.
    Sorum, who was named activist of the year by Physicians for a National Health Program at its annual meeting, said it was impressive that the Albany Medical College students were so concerned about the health care of their future patients that they took time to organize a forum.
    Jessin Blossom, Albany Medical College class of 2009, chaired the event at Albany Medical Center College on Tuesday, calling the new study a cause for celebration.
    “In the future I don’t want anyone to come between me and my patients,” said Blossom. “The private insurance companies get in the way of patients’ care. We need a single-payer system in order to protect the doctor-patient relationship.”
    The majority of physicians historically have been conservative on the issue, but now support national health insurance because they see how the current fragmented forprofit system no longer serves interest of patients, medical professionals or employees, she said.
    Health care continues to rank high among voter concerns in the 2008 elections and placed third in a recent pool after the economy and Iraq. None of the three leading candidates for president, including U.S. senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain support national health insurance.
    “Presidential candidates are not offering serious reform proposals, they are not advocating for universal health care and we think they should be moving in a stronger direction for national health care insurance,” said Blossom.
    “We expect physician support will continue to grow as the health care system declines.”
    Third-year medical student Tim Caramore from East Greenbush also supports a single-payer national health insurance system.
    The strongest appeal one can make is an appeal to pragmatism, he said.

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Services may suffer with gov’t health insurance

    Re the April 2 article, “Doctors, medical students call for national health insurance”: It states that a majority of doctors (52 percent) polled in a study done by the Indiana University School of Medicine favored government-sponsored national health insurance. All I have to say to these doctors is be careful what you wish for.
    I have empathy for their issues with health-insurance companies. Someone near and dear to me is a health care practitioner, and I help with her billings to the insurance companies. It’s truly a nightmare. Some insurers cover her services, some only cover some of her services, and others don’t even cover her services. As we all know, patient co-pays and premiums have been rising dramatically, but there is at least one insurer who has not raised how much it payers for this person’s services for seven years until this year (and only $2 at that).
    The problem with a national government health insurance system is that services will be rationed. And I beg to differ with the doctor in the article, Dr. Jennifer Pearce: The system in England is not that great. Neither is it that great in Canada, France or any other country that has national government health care.
    Yes, it would be easier for doctors and other health care providers to deal with one payer. However, you have to look at who health insurance is supposed to benefit — the patients— not the doctors or health care providers. The current system we have in this country offers the greatest benefits to the insured than any other government system in the world. That’s why so many people from other countries with government health insurance programs come here to get major heath care services.
    JOHN GAETANI
    Glenville

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French health care system better than U.S. one

Back in 1999 and into 2000, I lived in Paris for an entire academic year. While there, I came down with a terrible case of strep throat. I had no choice but to go to a doctor for treatment. I consulted a list of "approved" doctors through the American Consulate in Paris and made an appointment with one.
When I arrived at the doctor's office, I was treated and subsequently asked for my Social Security card, so that he could obtain payment. When I informed the doctor that I was American and didn't have a French Social Security card, he balked, and was afraid that the office visit would be too expensive for me to afford.
It ended up costing me about $30 for my visit, followed by another $20 at the pharmacy for the three prescriptions I was given. In other words, without insurance coverage, I was paying in France in the year 2000 what I pay now with insurance coverage.
You right-wingers can complain all you want about the French, and you can tell me to move there if I like it so much, but they're doing something right over there when the quality of their healthcare coverage is on par with or better than the United States at a fraction of the cost.
JAMES QUACKENBUSH
Rochester

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What James described is only a small part of health-care, a doctors visit and a prescription, let's talk about serious illness and the need for cancer treatment or an operation like a quadruple bypass, and any number of expensive organ transplant procedures and see how well the program treats their patients. How long will the patient have to wait for some of these life saving procedures and will the patient be given permission to get them when they reach a certain age.

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Straight talk about universal healthcare

This November, as in all election years, there are important issues at stake. One of them is the issue of socialized medicine or, to use the Democrats' latest euphemism for it, "universal healthcare." Universal disaster is more like it. The Dems do their best to put a positive, humanitarian spin on the idea, but the long-term ramifications would be devastating.
The Democrats would have you believe that conservatives who are against universal healthcare take this stance because they are mean-spirited and compassionless. Naturally, this isn't the case. And it's hardly how I feel.
I am against universal healthcare because I believe it will create one of the most intrusive government bureaucracies since the Internal Revenue Service, and it will impinge heavily on the individual freedoms of all American citizens.
Obama would attempt to achieve universal healthcare coverage by relying primarily on private insurance. That's right - he would look to solve our nation's health care problems by giving control of the system to the insurance companies. Wow.
One of the key misconceptions among Obama supporters is that a universal healthcare system would make healthcare more affordable. What delusional planet is he from? Under socialized medicine, the healthcare system may be perceived as being more fair, but it certainly won't be any cheaper.
A better way to describe the program would be to call it "universal heath insurance." The idea is that by compelling everyone in the nation to participate in the insurance market, you'd cut down on what's known as the "free rider" syndrome. As the term suggests, this would be people getting a "free ride" from the healthcare system by deciding not to get their own health insurance because they've been assured that in the case of an emergency or personal health catastrophe, inexpensive care will be guaranteed to them by the government. The theory is that mandated participation would help to drive down insurance costs.
But any mandate requires an enforcement component. My fear is that a government branch with the kind of power to actually identify and penalize those seeking to avoid the insurance mandates of universal healthcare would be vast and all-powerful. The new healthcare arm of the government would likely have the same kind of power (and loathsome reputation) as the IRS.
I'm all about personal freedom and the rights of individuals. Universal healthcare is not only impractical, but costly - and not just for your pocketbook. It's handing over yet another right to the government, and allowing the government to decide and rule your fate.
I'm not compassionless-I'm just sensible. And universal healthcare as it's being proposed still doesn't make much sense to me.
The disaster of the Massachusetts universal healthcare system should give you a preview of what life under a universal healthcare scheme could be like...

The universal healthcare dam springs a leak
A program of mandated health insurance is already in effect in Massachusetts. Under that system, subsidized insurance is made available to individuals earning up to $30,636 annually, and families of four earning up to $61,956 per year. The state government has begun to impose stiff fines on residents who fail to purchase health insurance - and the penalties can amount to as much as $912 a year!
And this place is already known as "Tax-achusetts!"
Even though this system is in its infancy, it already has many vocal opponents. Devon Herrick, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis calls the Massachusetts universal coverage plan "overregulated and largely unworkable." Herrick explains that the least expensive health plan available through the program costs $196 a month, while the state fine for being uninsured is about half that cost -- $98 a month!
After just two years, Massachusetts' universal coverage program is running at a staggering $147 million deficit, and the four insurance carriers who provide the state- subsidized insurance are estimating that costs will go up by 14 percent next year.
Even more shocking is the manner in which Massachusetts state officials have decided to deal with the out-of-control costs of their broken system: they've ordered the insurance companies to cut payments to doctors and hospitals, reduce choices for payments, and possibly increase how much patients will have to pay.
I only hope that Americans get a good, long look at the disaster that universal healthcare has wrought on the economy and people of Massachusetts before a similar catastrophe is unleashed on the whole country. The train wreck in New England is headed our way if the democrats get into the oval office.
America: you have been warned.
Giving you complete coverage on all the dangers of universal healthcare coverage,

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Under socialized medicine, the healthcare system may be perceived as being more fair, but it certainly won't be any cheaper.

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Universal health care would not equal socialism

First published: Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Mary Anne Nolan's thoughtful article of Sept. 9 urges "make your own choices for your health," rather than "allow the government to make these decisions"; that we need "competition or market forces to keep the players in check and offer us options."
     
But what "decisions" or "options" are available? Market forces have yielded over 45 million totally uninsured, and ever-decreasing coverage for those "insured" who develop serious illness or are unable to pay ever-increasing premiums.

She's right that any health system should be "monitored" and carefully watched. That applies to any industry affecting the public: health care, hedge funds, banks, Enron, etc.

Health insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They maximize profit by refusing those needing care the most. Each pushes its bell curve of total insureds toward the most healthy, away from the least healthy. Each spends huge amounts on advertising. Only government can cover all citizens under a single bell curve, where lower costs of the most healthy would help offset higher costs of the least healthy — and without profits or advertising.

Politicians fear mentioning the huge waste inherent in private insurance because knee-jerk opponents cry "socialism," the way Ronald Reagan reviled Medicare as "the advance move of socialism." Providing health care to all would no more be "socialism" than providing the military, federal highways, social security or the postal system.

Let's not let verbal scare tactics prevent a tragically needed fix. Let's get on with a federal single-payer system for everyone, while agreeing to keep watching.

John A. Beach
Latham and Bonita Springs, Fla.

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Without universal health care, America won’t get better

    As a second-year medical student, I had my first experience working in a clinical setting this summer, and I was amazed at the number of patients for whom the basics of health care were out of reach.
    Before this summer, the issue of health care affordability was one that I had read about, but never seen firsthand.
    For many, the cost of their co-pay for an office visit was nearly budget-breaking, and the out-of-pocket costs for prescription medication were out of reach. In many cases, this meant that doctors had to compromise the quality of their treatment by prescribing medications that were affordable, but which were less than ideal for their conditions. For the doctors, it was a choice of some treatment vs. none.
    On one occasion, I was asked to call a drug company on behalf of a patient whose annual income was just over the limit to qualify for that company’s prescription assistance program. The limit was two times the poverty level, or $21,000. Even though her previous year’s tax return showed less than $22,000 in income, and despite the fact that she was providing both for her own mother and her children, she was denied access to prescription assistance.
    In addition, her insurance company would not pay for the medication because it was non-generic — even though no generic alternative was available. This amounts to the insurance company dictating to doctors how to practice medicine.
    In contrast, I should mention that I study overseas, in Hungary. Hungary is a country that is far poorer than the United States; its history as a free-market, democratic society dates to 1989, and it is still a developing economy. Yet every Hungarian citizen has access to health care through a nationally administered insurance program. Those who want more options and choices in their care are free to purchase additional private insurance, but every citizen is guaranteed access to care when he or she needs it. If Hungary can provide for its citizens, so should the United States.
    I, like many other medical students today, feel that basic health care is a human right, and that denying people proper care based upon their socioeconomic status is discrimination.
    Because of this, I support measures to provide universal coverage to all Americans, and urge everyone to do the same.

    MICHAEL D. MANDEL
    Niskayuna

Quoted from Shadow

Mike neglected to mention all the countries where universal health-care isn't working and where people have to wait many months b4 anything is done for them.