span style="font-family:arial;"biJuly 27, 2009, 9:45 a.m./i/bbr /br /centerbForget the "Details," the Devil is in the Basic Concept/bbr /(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)/centerbr /Have you, like I, been more focused on the ipolitics/i of health care, and the "universal, single-payer" systems of civilized countries that is ioff/i the table than what's in the plans that are ion/i the table?br /br /This thing is doomed to disaster from the starting gate.br /br /"The Devil is in the details?" Not this time. The Devil is in these approaches from "Be it enacted" through the bottom of the last page.br /br /As Congressman Dennis Kucinich has long and famously said, "I don't want everybody in America to have health insurance. I want everybody to have health care."br /br /What the sickness industry's special interests, and the Democrats and Republicans they fund, are proposing is more sickness insurance. And it's far from clear that everybody is even going to have that.br /br /The sickness insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. You want to cut the costs of medical services? Well, how about starting with the 25-30% of those costs that represent insurance companies' administration (compared to 3% for Medicare)?br /br /The insurance companies, in case you hadn't noticed, are a for-profit operation. How do they increase profits to the levels Wall Street demands? Two ways: (1) continually increase premiums, while (2) reducing coverage, by refusing to insure at all those who might actually file claims, and then refusing to pay the claims of those they do insure.br /br /And how are we going to solve this problem? iBy requiring everyone to have health insurance/i?! It would be a hilarious segment of a comedy club stand-up routine if it weren't so outrageously corrupt.br /br /We've used taxpayers' money to bail out the banks and the auto companies. Now we're gong to pour more consumers' and taxpayers' money into the deep dark hole that is the for profit sickness industry.br /br /Unbelievable!br /br /Think I'm exagerating? Take a look at this sampling of three pieces from yesterday's and today's iNew York Times/i:br /br /a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/opinion/26sun1.html"Editorial, "Health Care Reform and You,"/a iNew York Times/i, July 26, 2009, p. WK9 ("The health care reform bills moving through Congress look as though they would do a good job of providing coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. But what would they do for the far greater number of people who already have insurance?"); a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/health/policy/27health.html?hp"Robert Pear, "Reach of Subsidies is Critical Issue for Health Plan,"/a iNew York Times/i, July 27, 2009, p. A1 ("The major health care bills moving through Congress would require nearly all Americans to have health insurance. But as lawmakers struggle to achieve the goal of universal coverage, a critical question is whether the plans will be affordable to those who are currently uninsured."); a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/opinion/27krugman.html?ref=opinion"Paul Krugman, "An Incoherent Truth,"/a iNew York Times/i, July 27, 2009, p. A21 ("Reform, if it happens, will rest on four main pillars: regulation, mandates, subsidies and competition. . . . [E]ven as they complain about the plan’s cost, the Blue Dogs are making demands that would greatly increase that cost.").br /____________br /br /* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnsonbr /br /center# # #/center/spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/30130444-9196652639595870729?l=fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com'//div
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