Warfare Over Health Care

We're being taken for a ride. The Blue Dogs and other fellow travelers ask us to be frugal when considering the general health of our citizens. But where were these spendthrift "deficit hawks" when Congress pushed through the lavish Pentagon spending bill and the operating budgets for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan? No nation on Earth could afford to garrison 130,000 soldiers in one country and 57,000 in another for years and years, and pile these expenses on the biggest military budget in the world without suffering some kind of fiscal catastrophe. Well, welcome to George W. Bush's "New World Order."

It was President Reagan who called Afghanistan the Soviet Union's "Vietnam" (which is odd since he also called the Vietnam war a "noble cause"). Now Afghanistan is our "Vietnam." Those cunning mujahadeen fighters and their allies and descendants, who Reagan called "freedom fighters," are no different today. If anything, they're a lot tougher. They utilize the difficult terrain of their barren, balkanized country, as well as clever guerrilla tactics (as the Vietnamese did) to vanquish would-be occupiers. The U.S. "coalition," in most Afghans' eyes, probably looks like the same old bunch of white guys trying to impose imperial control over their lands. The U.S. policy of escalation and targeted drone killings in the border regions will do little to deter "terrorists" from attacking the United States but does a lot to promote political instability inside nuclear-armed Pakistan.

In Iraq, the violent jockeying for real power has already begun between the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad and the Sunni and Kurdish minorities. Once the fighting escalates to a certain level there'll be loud yelps in the corridors of power in Washington for a renewed U.S. military effort in Iraq. (We can only imagine what will leap from the lips of Newt Gingrich and Liz Cheney.)

But President Obama has shown that in the area of foreign policy, at least, he is clearly in the driver's seat. I'm confident that whatever acts of barbarity occur in Iraq as U.S. soldiers are slowly withdrawn he's not stupid enough to listen to the advice of the Kenneth Pollacks and the Michael O'Hanlons and re-invade the country. The Halliburton/KBR/Brookings Institution party in Iraq is over.

On Afghanistan I'm not so sure.

In Congress, those who wanted to keep the F-22 jet fighter boondoggling along raised an uproar over cutting a measly $1.5 billion out of a military budget that has swelled to over $630 billion. And there are many voices in this same Congress that tell us we cannot afford to spend a fraction of that sum on the health of our citizens, even while fifty million of us have no health coverage at all.

The staggering costs of maintaining a global empire is eating away at the innards of this country. Nothing illustrates this point more than the debate on health care that's going on right now in the Senate Finance Committee. Senators are wrestling with saving a penny here and a penny there when they're aimed at bolstering people's health, but they believe the sky is the limit so long as the money is being funneled into imperial pursuits and foreign occupations. Most obscene of all is seeing the same men and women who called for wasting the nation's blood and treasure on occupying Iraq now become misers when Americans are clamoring for a sensible health care system.

Comments

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you all for the great comments -- I forgot to add the fact that Bush's tax cut for the wealthy generated $1.7 trillion in debt and his give-away to Big Pharma with the Medicare donut scam added another $1 trillion of debt (both over a ten year period) -- while the Pentagon and the glorious wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and taking care of vets (which we must do) will add cost the nation over the next 10 years at least $7 trillion -- and the Blue Dogs are now yapping and barking and lifting their legs on a health care bill that will save money in the long run and only cost $1 trillion over ten years -- nothing illustrates the corporate priority over the human one more than that and the power of lobbyists from the health insurance industry and the hypocrisy of the Blue Dogs.

[Sundialsvc4]

Very well put, sir.

"Whose people, Senator, are you trying to 'save?'" he said, scratching his head. "Why, it seems to me that, in both that country and ours, your idea of 'saving' people is to put them in the ground."

[dadw5boys]

The USA pays doe Israel's National Health Care when they have over 220,000 who refuse to work till after age 40.

They study the Tora all day and live off welfare. The marry and have kids but stay on welfare !!!!!

[WinterParkMom]

We cannot have public option without the following:
Coverage for EVERYONE who applies
Structured premium payments of not more than 100 per individual, 300 per family
Deductibles capped at $2000 and based on income (means testing every year like the va)
No mandates forcing people to purchase insurance (a windfall for private carriers)
No triggers (also a windfall to private carriers)
No subsidies to private insurance carriers
No taxes on employer provided benefits
If someone has private insurance and wants the public option, they can drop private with no problem and be covered immediately under public.
No mandates on employers to buy into the public option to cover employees. Has to be free choice.
Everyone with coverage gets treated for new or pre-existing conditions.
Fairly negotiated reimbursement to private pracitce, specialty doctors and hospitals
Fairly negotiated prices for medications, even on name brand stuff which has no generic equivalent.
AND IT HAS TO BE EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. Within 1 month of the above bill passing, Americans must be able to start buying in and using it.
It must be administered by an autonomous federal agency. Monies paid in must not be co-mingled with any other money, does not go into the general fund so it can be looted.
The ONLY payouts from this fund will be for: payments to practicioners, pharmacies and admin. In 5 years if we see significan overages, those overages will be used to suplement medicare and fund medical research.
See my next post on funding

[Aaror]

The premium needs to be based on the cost, or we will all have to pay for it (granted we already are).
About $400 per month individual and $1000 per month family would be more reasonable. Of course that would hash what you have below.

[vippy]

No one I know can afford that. That would be like 75% of a person's take-home pay.
Are these people so far removed from reality that they can't see that?

[WinterParkMom]

47 million un insured
20 million under insured
Subtract 10 million poor/indig­ent/mental­ly ill, etc, who are uninsured and will have to get free care = 37 mill un-insured who can pay.
18.5 million can pay $50/mo = 925,000,000
18.5 mill can pay $100 = $1,850,000,000
20 mill under insured will switch and can pay $100 = 2,000,000,000
That is a grand total of $4,775,000,000
That is FOUR BILLION, SEVEN HUNDRED SEVENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS IN PREMIUM PAYMENTS PER MONTH. FIFTY SEVEN BILLION THREE HUNDRED THIRTY MILLION PER YEAR IN PREMIUMS FOR ONE SET OF PEOPLE.
That does'nt count the millions who'll switch from private companies if they can pay $100 or 200 per month and have their entire family covered even with pre-existing conditions. Repeal bush tax cuts asap another 700 billion.
After thinking about it more, institute a 1 penny federal sales tax on EVERY item. I can hear the opponents shouting about making the poor poorer, but my statement is 1 cent on each item NOT on every dollar or hundred dollars. From candy bars to big screen tv's to your house. 1 cent on everything. If your grocery bill was $100. for 53 items, your bill would be $100.53. That's not putting people in the poorhouse especially when we've been dealing with price increases. Also, if you're saving 300-500 per month on insurance, you have that money to spend and put back in the economy, save, or invest.

[Aaror]

1 cent per item is actually more regressive than 1%. If you want a progressive sales tax, either exclude groceries and gas, or make the rate increase as the cost of the item increases (1% for items under $100, 2% for $100-$5000, 3% for above $5000 for example, excluding houses and cars).

[MaryanneAZ]

Hey, Dems, Do not miss Linda Bergthold's article on this site: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-bergthold/and-so-it-begins----the-a_b_249354.html. It is a MUST READ. In fact, I'm going to shamelessly promote the article as it has few comments and is too important to ignore.

[Brittanicus]

For months now since Health care reform suddenly become the main issue on the national agenda. We have been bombarded with the incessant accusation that the English/British form of the single-payer system is about unequivoca­l--RATIONI­NG? YES! This is the truth now, but it wasn't always that way. It wasn't until the Globalist plan to take over the originally named Common Market, that health care in England started to suffer. In Jan. 1, 1973, original known to Brits as the Common Market. The “One Market” that was created in 1993 states that people, money, services, and trade can move freely within the European Union. Currently over 450 million EU citizens are provided with these special options.

The indigenous British people's lives had already been disrupted by the importation of cheap labor from Commonwealth countries to drive the buses and run British Railway. Then family unification started and illegal immigration and the beginning of spiraling crime. RATIONING AND REDUCED HEALTH CARE CAME TO ENGLAND WITH AN OVERLOAD OF LEGAL AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, SUDDENLY THE UNITED KINGDOM FOUND THEMSELVES IN A TERRIBLE QUANDARY OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSAND OF REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS. ALL PAID FOR BY THE BRITISH/ENGLISH TAXPAYER.

[vippy]

That is also true for Germany!

[Brittanicus]

In spite of the restrictive immigration policies which have been in place since the 1970s in most Member States Of The European Union, large numbers of legal and illegal migrants have continued to come to the EU together with asylum-seekers and illegal labor. Taking advantage of individuals seeking an improved life, smuggling and skin trafficking networks have taken hold across the EU. The inception of these relative dates in when one of the greatest Universal Health care system, came to a grinding halt of quality.

The system was simple? You paid your insurance stamps and the employer paid his? End of story. The years I worked in the Mother country, I received three minor surgeries, teeth and dentistry, and eye care. WITH NO PREMIUMS, NO-PAYS, NO DEDUCTIONS AND CERTAINLY NO PRE EXISTING CONDITIONS? ONCE I SPENT THREE MONTHS IN EAST GRINSTEAD HOSPITAL WITH A BACK PROBLEM. MY COST--NOTHING! WE CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT SUPPORT THE MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS AND FAMILIES WITH TRILLION DOLLAR HEALTH CARE. IT WILL LEAD TO RATIONING ON A GRAND SCALE! AS ALWAYS THE TAXPAYER WILL FOOT THE BILL FOR BUSINESS WELFARE.

[Brittanicus]

CALL YOUR POLITICIAN IN WASHINGTON 202-224-3121 I Want a health care system--even government run. BUT IT"S SURE TO FAIL, IF TAXES ARE BEING EXTORTED TO PAY FOR FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS? Support for the bi-partisan E-VERIFY PART OF THE SAVE Act, which will expand E-Verify and protect American Workers! We must focus on the behemoth problem in terminating illegal immigrants-and the jobs that attract illegal aliens. WE WILL ALWAYS BE PAYING FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS, UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING NOW? Many GOP members are against a Path to citizenship for lawbreakers, so we mostly need the phones ringing in the ears of Democrats, who see the millions of illegal aliens as a positive voting block.

[WASanford]

Joseph, great minds think alike. Through all this I've been wondering why our budget deficit never comes up when we're considering a new weapon system, extending our military all around the world, or invading another country. Why that debt matters more when we're considering the welfare of our own citizenry is beyond me.

It appears that if health care reform is going to happen, it will have clear the Senate as a continuing resolution. In that case, it will have to be revisited in a few years. I believe, that being the case, health care reform should come in the form of single payer so we don't have to fight the health insurance industry again. Single payer = no health insurance industry. Let's just get it over with!

"but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards." R.W. Emerson, Self-Reliance

[vippy]

Noticed the same thing. No one ever crows after our huge expenditure when it comes to National Defense and the war. Are we that stupid that we don't see it, pledge allegiane, etc. etc. and for what, so the rich can get richer.

[JDM73]

Makes it pretty clear where our lawmakers' priorities are, doesn't it?

[Yermammy]

You hit the nail on the head, Joe. We're too busy furthering our empire to worry about the roman citizens. That's what the blood and circus is for- distraction. We should enact into law that absolutely no corporation can produce products solely for warfare. Doesn't it stand to reason that peace would be detrimental to their bottom line? Of course it would be, hence their influence in our media (GE, General Dynamics, Lockheed, Boeing etc.).

[CharlieMarlowe]

Oh I get it now. Wars keep people employed in the military-industrial complex and while they are employed they get health insurance. So, we need a few more wars so that we can employee everyone making weapons. As a result everyone will have health insurance. Brilliant!

[Yermammy]

Brilliant! When we're not killing folks, we're patching em up! Job security! And the cycle continues.­..

[FoonTheElder]

We keep making billion dollar bombs that sit there and do nothing until the either explode or go bad, while our bridges, sewers and roads fall apart.

[cactusgal]

Excellent article. I wish more Americans would read up on these subjects. I just finished The Looming Tower (about the prelude to 9/11), and was shocked at how much I didn't know about bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Luring us into Afghanistan was always a major goal for them, and now we seem to be going back with a vengeance. Mission Accomplished, fellas.

[bud812]

Ill take my health care into my own hands no problem but the government better not mandate health insurance like they have auto liabillity with no cost controlls in place.If they do that then its just a matter of time before they pretty much are telling us how we spend our pay checks be aware it could happen!