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From the President’s Physician: “Yes, there are parties who stand to lose out under a single-payer program – the private, for-profit health insurance companies and their multimillionaire CEOs in the first place. The head of Aetna, for example, received $18.6 million in compensation last year. That’s obscene.
Investor-owned, for-profit hospitals won’t benefit from single-payer either. Neither will the big pharmaceutical companies, who will no longer be able to sell their drugs at such outrageous prices. A single-payer system will be able to buy drugs in bulk and negotiate prices.
Some critics attack single-payer, arguing that under such a program, government bureaucrats will be between the patient and the physician. In the 40 years I have been practicing under Medicare, I have never encountered an instance where Medicare has prevented proper medical care. On the other hand, insurance companies frequently interfere and block appropriate care.
There are multiple problems with the present congressional health reform proposals, but allowing private insurance to continue being involved is the most egregious.
Single payer will offer secure, comprehensive and quality care to all.”
At yesterday’s “beer with the President”: Obama had a Bud Lite, Sergeant Crowley had Blue Moon, Professor Gates drank Sam Adams Light and Vice President Biden, who does not drink, had a Buckler nonalcoholic beer.
Bud-Lite!?
Recession Worse Than Prior Estimates, Revisions Show
Falling production idles nearly a third of nation’s factories, mines, utilities
NAFTA Trade Takes Record 35.4 Percent Dive
Trade using surface transportation between the United States, Canada and Mexico dropped 35.4 percent in May, the largest year-over-year decline on record for the North American Free Trade Agreement
Industrial Capacity Use Hits Record Low
The world’s largest economy contracted 1.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the last three months of 2008, compared with the 0.8 percent drop previously on the books, the Commerce Department said today in Washington.
The DOL report this morning showed seasonally adjusted insured unemployment at 6.2 million, down from a peak of about 6.9 million. This raises the question (and frequent emails) of how many unemployed workers have exhausted their regular unemployment benefits
Several days ago our local Republic Fascist Party “news”paper inveighed the disgrace of our clear, clean, un-fluoridated water… seventy years of research have shown that fluoride is only effective in preventing carries as a topical application – toothpaste – and then only in young children who have yet to grow their “adult” teeth. There is no evidence whatsoever that fluoridated water is effective in preventing dental decay.
We will leave aside that when isolated by the Nazis, they were looking for a mass mind control drug, or that fluoridite (fluoride) makes up ninety-two percent of the popular mind-control drug Prosaic.
Fluoride is the toxic by-product of aluminum manufacture, a poison, that before isolation killed thousands of cattle downstream from Alcoa plants along the Colombia River in the 1940s (pig era). Fluoridation of municipal water supplies is nothing more than a scam by the aluminum manufacturers to dump their toxic waste. What you are suggesting is the mass poisoning of the population. Why?
Calculating the Real Unemployment Rate
The BLS calculates the official unemployment rate, U-3, as the number of unemployed as a percentage of the civilian labor force. The civilian labor force consists of employed workers plus the officially unemployed, those without jobs who are available to work and have looked for a job in the last 4 weeks. Applying the data found in Table 2 yields an official unemployment rate of 9.1%, or a seasonally adjusted rate 9.4% for April 2009.
Accounting for the large number of marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons raises the count of unemployed to 24.0 million workers for May 2009. Those numbers push up the U-6 unemployment rate to 15.9% or a seasonally adjusted rate of 16.4%.
The comprehensive U-6 unemployment rate adjusts the official rate by adding marginally attached workers and workers forced to work part time for economic reasons to the officially unemployed. To find the U-6 rate the BLS takes that higher unemployment count and divides it by the official civilian labor force plus the number of marginally attached workers. (No adjustment is necessary for forced part-time workers since they are already counted in the official labor force as employed workers.)
These figures dramatically understate the true extent of unemployment. First, they exclude anyone without a job who is ready to work but has not actively looked for a job in the previous four weeks. The Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies such workers as “marginally attached to the labor force” so long as they have looked for work within the last year. Marginally attached workers include so-called discouraged workers who have given up looking for job-related reasons, plus others who have given up for reasons such as school and family responsibilities, ill health, or transportation problems.
Second, the official unemployment rate leaves out part-time workers looking for full-time work: part-time workers are “employed” even if they work as little as one hour a week. The vast majority of people working part time involuntarily have had their hours cut due to slack or unfavorable business conditions. The rest are working part time because they could only find part-time work.
According to today’s edition of our local monopoly on Republic Fascist Party “news” Senator Wyden hates, just hates, the idea of a Bend startup company’s idea of offering overflights to rich-assed tourerist daughter-fuckers over a lake that already runs a couple of tour boats and about a million cars a day.
Hates, just hates I tell ‘ya, The American Way of Life: Free Market Enterprise, Up By The Bootstraps Capitalism, Creating Jobs For Oregonians.
Door, Senator Wyden. Senator Wyden, Door.
Bullshiten: Bob Chandler is rolling in his grave.
Faux News can’t find Egypt on a map. As stupid as those who watch.
Bought and paid for by Ivan the Insurance Agent.
All this Republic Fascist Party scare-talk about an Obama heathcare plan that kills off old folks is pure projection, because that is exactly what the existing system is doing to me right now, and has been for many years.
Opportunities at health-care reform do not happen frequently. The average between major attempts is 19.5 years. That’s 19.5 years in which the uninsured stay uninsured and their ranks grow. Where a situation that is already bad gets a lot worse. This year, Barack Obama is popular, and there are 60 Democrats in the Senate and huge majorities in the House. There is no reason to believe that Democrats will be in a stronger position anytime soon. It is not like when a weakened Nixon, or a fading Bush, offered a compromise.
If reformers cannot pass a strong health-care reform bill now, there is no reason to believe they will be able to do it later.
