ObamaCare vs. RepublicCare

Given how America's political system works, the only alternative to ObamaCare is RepubliCare.

But while the GOP and its friends have spent over $400 million telling you how awful ObamaCare is, they haven't spent a cent telling you what their alternative is.

I can tell you what it is, though:

1. Repeal ObamaCare in toto.
2. There is no "2."

So RepubliCare is for-profit medicine by the medical-industrial complex, for the medical-industrial complex, by the medical-industrial complex.

RepubliCare is overcrowded emergency care facilities being used by the poor as their primary care. RepubliCare is your health insurance that you paid into for forty years getting canceled as soon as you really need it.
RepubliCare is private health insurance for those whose employers don't provide health insurance plus freelancers plus retirees, which provides excellent care for millionaires, while the rest find it's either too expensive to buy or whose deductibles are so high it's useless.
RepubliCare is the most expensive per-capital healthcare system on Earth, with the worst outcomes for most people compared to those of other developed nations--the healthcare system growing in costs so rapidly that it's consuming the American economy--the healthcare system every responsible economist said is unsustainable and running us over a cliff in short order.

ObamaCare has plenty of shortcomings--mostly due to compromises made at the behest of those who are now trying to kill it. But it's a dream compared to the nightmare of RepubliCare.

So--the next time your Republican friends, family and acquaintances want to talk to you about how awful ObamaCare is, make them do so not against some imaginary ideal but against the reality of RepubliCare.

Healthcare reform isn't perfect!

New York Times liberal columnist Bob Herbert published an op-ed piece today saying "There is a middle-class tax time bomb ticking in the Senate’s version of President Obama’s effort to reform health care." I said:

...And yet equally liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman endorsed passing whatever highly flawed healthcare reform legislation emerges from Congress.

What's the difference between Herbert and Krugman? They're both equally liberal. Perhaps it's that Krugman is a distinguished economist and understands the big picture a little better than Herbert.

If this doesn't pass it's a good bet we'll get a Republican president in 2012, and given the age and health of the Supreme Court's less conservative minority, that ensures that an even farther right Supreme Court majority will be available to overturn progressive legislation and decide close elections in the GOP's favor for generations to come.

Moreover, healthcare reform, once passed, will be modifiable. Without passage of something, however flawed, the GOP sock puppets and their paymasters in Medicine-for-profit-Inc. will ensure that we won't get a second chance for another generation. They're already spending over a million dollars a day spreading breathtaking lies (according to www.factcheck.org and www.politifact.com), turning public opinion against reform.

So while Mr. Herbert's complaints may well be valid, considered by themselves, from a larger perspective, we absolutely need to pass healthcare reform, however flawed.

I've read scores of comments on these threads by liberal Democrats declaring that this shouldn't pass because it falls short of their dream (and mine), and that furthermore they won't support Obama next time around because he failed to..what? We didn't elect him king. An American president has very constrained powers compared to many other kinds of heads of state.

When President Palin is busy undoing EVERYTHING Obama accomplished and is putting us in an even deeper hole than Bush put us in...remember this moment and what your whirly-eyed idealism did to us.

www.blogzu.blogspot.com

PS: I've been tallying up comment threads like this on the NYT and WaPo, and either both newspapers' readers are overwhelmingly far right Republican--or non-readers (probably in both senses of the term) are showing up in these forums the same way they showed up at congressional townhall meetings--to shout down anyone they disagreed with and to make it seem like there were more people like them than there really are.

So as you peruse this thread, look for semiliterate broad-spectrum denunciations of Democrats in general and Obama/Pelosi/Reid in particular, frequent mentions of "socialism" and other red-faced hyperbole, and generally venemous tone. And look at yourself reading them--see how they try to suck you into off-topic sparring with them instead of actually talking about Herbert's column.

You must ignore them. It's hard, I know. But you should know that you can't change their minds--that would require minds to change. We must combat them, but not by talking to them. Independents with genuine concerns, yes. Republicans like David Brooks and David Gergen and Colin Powell, absolutely. Not the nutjobs, though. That's what they want.

===============================================

The NYTimes published 279 comments on Herbert's editorial. They deleted this one, though. Apparently it violated their terms, though for the life of me I can't figure out why. The vast, vast majority of the comments said Herbert was right and that healthcare reform resembling ther Senate or House bills should not pass. Most were liberals, but many righty-tighties also wrote in, saying they agreed with Herbert for the first time, then went on to make venemous disparaging comments about the president, all liberals and the congressional Democrats in particular.

I'm sorry "compromise" is so very difficult for people to understand.

I fear we'll get what these NYT readers are asking for: no healthcare reform at all, since it's currently impossible to get the kind they demand. And then we'll get President Palin.

Healthcare reform woes partly the Demos' fault

Across America many millions of Republicans await anxiously to see whether their champions in Congress can defeat what they see as the foreigner in the White House and his European Socialist cohorts in Congress trying to bankrupt them and then kill them when they're old and useless.

It's such an irony that it's their heroes who want to bankrupt them and then kill them (when they can't pay their premiums any more).

But it's not just the $1.4M/day the healthcare denial industry is spending to defeat any kind of reform that might reduce their profits. It's not just the Republican partisans whose loyalty is more tribal than principled.

It's also Obama's fault, and the Democratic Congress--they've let the other convince a majority of Americans of one central point: that the Democrats plan to transfer some of their healthcare to others--bums and foreigners mainly. They've allowed this to happen by harping on the need to help those without insurance. Yet most voters have insurance, which they'll have until they actually need it. And then they won't. But that's not now. Now they need to hear about what Obama is going to do for them. And how what most pay for their insurance has zoomed up, but mostly out of sight.

Time after time the Democratic Party manages to sound like it cares about every ethnicity on Earth except for European-Americans, to use a phrase they never use.

I voted for Obama to get healthcare reform, even though, like most Americans, I'm concerned about illegal immigration--especially since I live in the part of America that's being overrun, far from the Beltway.

What happened to the realistic Democrats who knew how to win back Congress and the White House? Did they think the Republican Party's paymasters would just go away quietly? There's waaay too much profit involved. And Democrats must remember that the Blue Dog Democrats are blue dogs because more liberal demos couldn't have gotten elected, and without them the Demos couldn't have taken back Congress, and if the Blue Dogs appear to lose faith with their constituents they won't get re-elected, and then the GOP (Greed Over Principle) party will regain Congress. Do you want that to happen?

You can't get in the ring wearing gloves and talking about altruism when the other guy's stepping in wearing brass knucks and talking about what the majority of Americans most care about--their own healthcare.

Whining about how dirty the Republican leadership fights won't help either. Of course they fight dirty. They've been fighting dirty at least since Reagan painted the government as all bad all the time--a long-term investment in deregulation that has paid off handsomely for the Angry Billionaire's Club. If they fought fair they'd lose. So they don't (see my definition of G.O.P.).

Obama doesn't have to lose his cool. But he does have to deal with the Republican Party he's got instead of the one he wants. And he has to face the fact that this is only going to work if doctors get paid salaries instead of for piecework (procedures); and if the insurance industry profits get scaled back to those of ordinary businesses--and if the pharmaceutical industry's profits go likewise.

Obama's getting the poked hornet's nest attack anyway, no matter what he does. Might as well try to actually accomplish something.

--As long as he keeps making it clear that his beef is with the Republican leadership and their padrones--not the Republican rank and file.

Suffering under Britain's socialized healthcare

In citing reasons for sagging public support for healthcare reform, not one right wing shill has noted one itsy bitsy fact: the $1.4M/DAY the healthcare denial industry is spending to defeat any kind of healthcare reform whatsoever.

At the same time the healthcare denial industry's shills and spokespeople pretend to support various denatured versions of reform.

At the same time its black ops specialists spread one vicious lie after another (according to nonpartisan sites www.politifact.com and wwww.factcheck.org), using anonymous chain emails and whisper campaigns, followed up by right wing radio and TV propagandists.

The other thing the shills fail to note is our nationwide parochialism. Most of us, left and right, seem to have almost no idea that other industrial democracies exist, all with universal healthcare, all spending less than us, all with greater life expectancy.

Sure, the right wing propagandists bring forth individuals from Canada and Britain who say what you might expect.

But those countries are all democracies. And in none of them will you find the money and power vested in the status quo as America has. So if their systems (highly varied, some socialistic, some regulated capitalistic, most a mix) all suck so badly--why aren't their voters clamoring for America's fabulous system?

They must just be anti-American...

Well, I have a friend in Scotland--a high tech businessman who has traveled here fairly often. I asked him if the Brits longed for our system. Here's what he said:

"That's easy - the NHS isn't perfect but it is very, very good. The Palin stories are about as accurate as you'd expect from someone who thinks the earth is 5000 years old. I would resist in the strongest possible terms any attempt to dismantle the public health system.

I can tell you first hand that the elderly - vis my parents - get astounding treatment without the slightest hesitation. My father collapsed at our Christmas lunch - we had a paramedic on site in under five minutes from calling 999, our emergency number. An ambulance was at our door in 10 minutes and he was in a high-dependency unit within 20. He was recovering rapidly, but they kept him in over night after moving him to a lower care level ward. No forms, no charge, just fantastic service.

This concept of them choosing not to treat people on age is simply invented by the nutjob right wingers.

At the end of the scale, one of our staff has been diagnosed with bowel cancer - she was operated on within 5 days and was retained in hospital for a full 2 weeks for recover with excellent care and access to all the latest medication etc etc.

BTW you can ask my American friends living here for their views - it's identical to mine!

And I think the vast majority of the rest of the country would agree - I think you'd get at least 95% if not 98% support. As someone said 'everyone knows someone whose life was saved by the NHS.'"

Healthcare reform

My fellow Democrats: We're in for the fight of our lives. I know more about what we're up against than most Democrats, because I'm married to a staunch Republican, attend a church that's 90+% Republican, and have many friends among them. I'm also a sociologist by training and a debater by practice.

Based on all this, here's some heartfelt advice:

1. Don't call them racists.

It's a Rovian trap to do so--one set by the Republican leadership and their healthcare denial industry paymasters. They never, ever say \"We hate Obama because he's black,\" even if everything they do would make it reasonable to think so.

But when you call them racists, you've just changed the topic from healthcare reform to a territory they can defend. And while you're trying to prove they're racists, the RNC will be rubbing its hands, as the topic of healthcare is forgotten.

2. Don't let them call Obama and the Democratic Party and you socialists.

And they will. Count on it. I usually say: \"Socialism means ownership of business by government. Democrats don't want to own it. We just want to regulate it. We tried business without regulation twice in the last century. It got us the Great Depression and now the worst recession since that. But help me out. Republicans seem to want ownership of government by business. What do you call that?\"

And as Krugman points out, they don't want \"socialized healthcare\" but they're often on Medicare.

The other advanced countries--all democracies--have everything ranging from heavily regulated private systems to mostly socialized ones. All of them are far cheaper than our system; all of them have better health outcomes than our system. And not one of those countries' electorates have ever shown the slightest interest in adopting our system.

Guess why? They don't want to die while some for-profit insurance company denies your request for a new kidney, hoping that if they slow-foot your claim you will in fact die before they're forced to honor it.

And by the way...cops and firemen are \"socialized safety.\"

3. They'll say most Americans are happy with their current healthcare.

I say wait 'till you or a loved one gets really sick. After all, if you ran a health insurance company, and your only goal was profit, what would you do when a customer got really, really sick?

You'd get rid of him, using your army of bureaucrats whose main job is to find excuses for recission--that's cutting off someone's insurance by saying you didn't dot an \"i\" somewhere on your application.

That's why I call these companies the \"Healthcare denial industry.\" Very few people who've actually had catastrophic illness are happy with their healthcare insurance. And even those who say they're happy may not have noticed how their healthcare premiums have doubled in the last few years, because it's why you didn't get a raise--it's often hidden in your overall compensation.

4. They'll say they don't want the government telling them when to die, and as Krugman points out, even Republican congressmen are saying this.

People this far gone can rarely be reached, but I just say \"The people you think are on your side are actually vampires sucking your blood; the people you think are out to destroy you and America are actually trying to save you--and you're throwing away the life vest they've thrown you because the predators pretending to be your friends told you it's a bomb.\"

Bottom line: the Republican healthcare plan is the alternative to the Democrats' attempt at healthcare reform. What's that plan, you say? Easy. It's the healthcare reform plan Congress passed during the 12 years the Republican Party controlled Congress and the six years it controlled all three branches of government:

[nothing]

That's right, folks. That's their healthcare reform package. Nothing. Excuse me if I don't include their pharmaceutical industry giveaway that masqueraded as Medicare drug assistance. Other than that phony plan that ordered government agencies to pay whatever price the drug companies chose to charge...nothing.

The healthcare denial industry has grown to swallow up 1/6 of the entire American economy, gutting our competitiveness on the world market, through keeping things exactly as they are. Without healthcare reform the current system will take up 1/3 of the entire economy in a few years.

It's unsustainable. You think Medicare and Social Security are headed for trouble? That's nothing compared to this.

Most of all, the Republicans want their rank and file to think we Democrats are their enemy; that we want to turn America into some alien place they won't recognize.

And they want Democrats to treat Republican rank and file as their enemy, so we'll never realize we both have the same enemy: the bloodsucking billionaires who pull the strings in the shadows. They're practising divide and conquer. And they're very, very good at it.

So remember who the real enemy is.