"Burn Your Health Insurance Bill" Day.......

from CounterPunch:




A National Day of Action on March 12
Burn Your Health Insurance Bill!

By RUSSELL MOKHIBER


Sitting in front of your computer won’t do it.

Watching C-Span won’t do it.

E-mailing your member of Congress won’t do it.

We’re going to have to get off the couch.

And directly confront the three branches of our government.

Obama’s White House.

The Democrat-controlled Congress.

And the for-profit health insurance corporations.

To help us get the job done, we have created Single Payer Action.

Our purpose – direct action to demand a single payer health insurance system in the United States.

First action: Wednesday March 11, 2009, 10 a.m.

A group of activists will protest in front of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. (1150 22nd Street, N.W. Either Dupont Circle Metro or GWU/Foggy Bottom Metro.)

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) is the main Washington lobbying group for the health insurance corporations. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.counterpunch.org/mokhiber03032009.html

And I don't necessarily agree with everything that organization says. 'No co-pays'? Co-pays (keep them small) are an incentive for people to not abuse the system--they have a place.

because they can't afford them. It might be a difference between bus fare or a child's lunch. It isn't the patients that abuse the system but health care providers who charge for services not rendered or who order unnecessary diagnostic tests, etc. because of the extra money to be made.

However, some people use the health care system, especially with no co-pays, every time they get a sniffle. How do you discourage that? That creates longer lines and over prescribing of unnecessary meds (when over the counter is available). Even if the provider said 'you are fine, go home', there would be some charge.

This false premise is one that is put out there along with others as to why national health care won't work. "Why all the hypochondriacs will be out in full force costing the taxpayers money!" Horrors!

The truth is part of preventive medicine is to have the sniffle looked at before it develops into something more costly down the line. It actually saves money.

who thinks that anyone who disagrees when them is a freeper troll, brain washed by the lobbyist, working for said corporation, has a vested interest, is anti-gaym or voted against Obama...

No use discussing/debating anything with you, if everything I say is going to be attributed by all knowing you, to the health care lobby.

A basher who doesn't listen to reason, is what you are saying about me. It appears you are the one who won't debate politely when I called you on something that is done by the insurance and for profit health care industry on a regular basis in order to discredit any attempts at fixing our health care crisis with common sense and workable legislation, that being getting the parasitical insurers and for profit HMOs out of health care altogether. It's the middle men who are delivering profits to Wall Street instead of health care who have brought us this crisis. For these statements I have just made to you I have plenty of credible sources to cite. Do you have any such source for your allegation that not having co-pays makes people run to the doctor all the time for silly symptoms?

I didn't make accusations about your sources. Why do you make accusations about mine? I didn't say you didn't listen to reason. If you reread what I said, I clearly said that you were bashing my viewpoint as coming from a lobbyist point of view. If everytime someone wants to engage in a policy discussion, one party to the discussion hurls insults, nothing will ever get done.

As far as co-pays, several Single Payer systems (other countries) impose co-pays to prevent 'overutilization'. Some exempt pregnant women, some apply to specialists only, some require you pay 10% (capped at some maximum). So I guess all the other countries that use co-pays do so because of the health care lobby?

everything you read about this because what you are repeating is old, old propaganda that dates back to the time Harry Truman tried to get us Medicare for all. That's how old these arguments against national health care are but they are the ones you mostly hear because corporate interests own 90% of our media and they can propagandize you any way they want. Today however we have proof that all these fear tactics are just that. Most industrialized countries of the world have national health care and those that don't have deductibles and co-pays successfully deliver quality health care to their citizens for half the cost that we pay for our health care and they cover everyone, not just 60% of the population.

Big Pharma AND the medical community are reaping what they have sown. Someone has a runny nose -- cries of people can DIE from *put your favorite illness here* -- ads that tell people SEE YOUR PHYSICIAN!

This country has been over-frightened, over medicated and UNDER educated as to what constitutes a slight illness. And NOW suddenly when the possibility of universal healthcare is here, we hear people bitching because people go to the doctor too much?

The medical community is going to have to suck up and DEAL with the problems THEY helped promulgate. Consumers have been told *tough shit* for far too long. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Waaaahhhmbulance at the ready. :sarcasm:

are first-time moms with new babies..Why? BECAUSE THEIR DOCTORS TELL THEM TO BRING THE BABY IN IF ANYTHING SEEMS AMISS..and being a first time Mom, they are often scared and uncertaion, so they err on the side of caution..

Older Moms "know" what's serious and what's not, but as a Mom of 3 boys, I can tell you that the LAST thing I ever wanted to do, was to drag three boisterous knuckleheads to a doctor's waiting room, where I would have to stifle every impulse to not tie them together...to a chair..while we waited FOREVER..only to have the whiny-complainer proclaim "Fine!", when the doctor asks him, "How do you feel"?

Our rule of thumb was:

conscious...okay
minimal blood...okay
no bone sticking out..okay

Recommend.

Get the facts on single-payer healthcare.

:kick: