Democratizing Healthcare

President Obama's sifting positions on healthcare overhaul defines the nature of the man and will constitute his domestic legacy. When an Illinois legislator in 2003, Obama advocated single-payer healthcare. The sincerety and authority of that claim is now in question. Recently he stated that single-payer was the best system. But, that is now qualified, "only if the U.S. was starting from scratch". Since a system already exists, it is better to use what works and repair what doesn't in the existing system; therefore, single-payer will not be considered. The reasoning has no basis in reality or logic. The artful dodger, in sonorous tones, is seemingly convinced as to the correctness of his reevaluation.

In an act of pure showmenship Obama declared that every side of the healthcare reform debate had been invited to attend a recent White House conferrence when he had deliberately excluded single-payer experts! Under heavy pressure, he finally allowed a single-payer advocate to attend.

Everyone has heard House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi's infamous proclamation early on that single-payer was "off the table". With or without Obama and Pelosi, I would like to believe the U.S. will establish a single-payer healthcare system. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation without such a program! Yet, it seems as a so-called reform process dominated by the health industry continues, the only way to get single-payer is by a consumer coup de main!

A majority of Americans want single-payer, dispite the misinformation and disinformation that dominate media and townhall discussions. The Republican opposition to single-payer will become more nasty as time passes. Obama's consessions to the opposition signal the sharks that a feast is close at hand. That Obama seeks to include the very politicians and industry heads and lobbyists, his bipartisan approach, that will do all in their collective power to defeat anything that would change the healthcare status quo, is extremely naive--or, does it represent his true desires? This along with the Wall Street bailout are indications that in the Obama administration, the Congressional Republican minority, is in control of government! But, that seems to satisfy Obama.

The President's hedging and his lessening expectations for a government funded option will likely destroy his political base in 2012, and could affect 2010 mid-term Congressional elections. As the only industrialized nation (and the wealthiest at that) without a government managed healthcare program (and I have to keep coming back to that fact), the brutality and pitylessness inherent in a for-profit medical system verges on the criminal; and it is man's inhumanity to man at its most venomus and insiduous level. It is capitalism exposed.

The opposition against single-payer is ideological. Republicans and conservative Democrats (Blue Dogs and their kind) object to government programs that would make life more comfortable and satisfying for the vast majority of Americans, to any thing that furthers the common good. The wealthy minority can afford to go it alone! They don't need single-payer, and they certainly do not want to help finance it through public means.

Here we are, the richest per-capita nation on the planet and 49 million, and steadily increasing, of its approximately 300 million population have no healthcare coverage. And the stories are legion about for-profit healthcare insurance companies denying treatment and other misdeeds! When Canada instituted universal single-payer in 1968, Medicare and Medicade programs for the aged and the poor were Lydon Johnson's compromise or consession to the healthcare industry and the AMA, and signed into being the same year. Only President Johnson made any progress in what is now a hundred-year ordeal in trying to get even universal coverage. Of course, the way to get full coverage and to reduce costs is the single-payer system! Nothing has happened to that end in forty-plus years!

The connection between employment and for-profit healthcare insurance coverage was an expedient happenstance that took shape during the full-employment period of World War II. It was a godsend to the health insurance industry which provides no added value, only higher costs. When people lose employment, they also lose medical insurance! Others lose coverage when they retire. Contract and part-time workers are usually on their own.

One of the sadest circumstances with the New Deal was FDR's abandonment of universal healthcare legislation. Francis Perkins had to yield to AMA's ultimatum. If FDR wanted Social Security and other New Deal programs, plans for universal healthcare had to be withdrawn!

In the so-called progressive era (was it rally significantly progressive?) Theodor Roosevelt in 1912, first propossed universal healthcare for Americans. President Truman (for all his other failings) took up the issue. However, throughout many decades the AMA and the healthcare- industrial complex, including the pharmaceutical and hospital equipment segments, have prevailed.

Today, most physicians are not AMA members. (Fees are quite high.) But, most physicians support a Medicare- for-all program, which is a single-payer system. In a strange reversal, the AMA supports the Obama healthcare overhaul, although no one seems to know what it includes or excludes. While healthcare insurance corporation CEO's make tens of millions in annual remunerations or emoluments, thousands of uninsured people die annually for lack of coverage. (An estimated 44,000 deaths.)

The obscenity of executive compensations aside, the fact that a supposed democratic nation ignors a basic human right, that of guaranteed and essentially free healthcare, is a contradiction that should embarrass every American. U.S. presidents speak of spreading democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, but deny universal healthcare at home. This is prima facie evidence that the U.S. is itself in need of assistance in establishing a truly democratic nation. With corporate rule in the U.S., democracy is ellusive at best.

The U.S. Senate is central to healthcare reform; for no matter what the House passes, even the public option, it will be watered down or eliminated in the House-Senate conference committee. A handful of very rich Senators will determine the healthcare fate of 300 million less previleged Americans! A significant number of Senators have financial investments in the healthcare indudustry and some receive considerable amounts of campaign contributions from the healthcare, pharmaceutical and hospital equipment corporations--the healthcare-industrial complex--a combine more powerful than the military-industrial complex! Conflict of interest issues are obvious. You need only examine Senator Christopher Dodd's business favors received to fully understand the venal nature of Congressional politics. Senator Max Baucus is pointguard for private health insurance corporations. Senator Schumer is another major recipient of campaign contributions from the health industry.

One of the movers and shakers for single-payer is Michale Moore. But he, his documentary film"Sicko", like single-payer itself, is never given respectful mention on mass media. The film is the industry's worst nightmare, a documentary on the common sense realities of single-payer universal healthcare.

President Obama and congressional democrats are rushing forward with phantom legislation coming out of various committies. Nothing is explained. There are only vague generalities and promises. The rush is intended to preempt debate. For if single-payer were included in a genuine debate, it would win, hands down and going away! The status quo Machiavellians are scared. Single-payer is inherently logical and clearly the solution to a failed and corrupt system that values profit over healthcare! Any person who thinks single-payer is bad for America, viewing "Sicko" is a required assignment. Have some facial tissues at the ready during the showing.

The healthcare industry has been gearing up for the current and inevitable confrontation since the day after it crushed reform efforts early in the Clinton administration! (After the debacle, the Clinton's never mentioned the matter again.) However, the situation is different this time around, if for no other reason than that Congress will be held responsible if a universal, single-payer system is not enacted! A lot of heads in Congress could roll. (And at the same time, the frustration with the Wall Street bailout is deeping among voters. A year has passed and Congress has done nothing to control the unbridled greed of financial institutions.)

Medical care based on and controlled by the need to secure maximum profits for insurance corporations will not provide democratic healthcare. Fee-for-service medical care is a shame upon the nation. President Obama is trying to distract public attention from single-payer by including a public option. He was forced to make this concession by the momentum generated by single-payer advocacy. But, Barak Obama's inconsistences, the absurd complications associated with his compromises on healthcare and the inherent truth and simplicity of a government managed healthcare system, will expose his unwillingness to level with the American people. His credibility as a national leader will be tarnished and his political career could be brought to an early end. One thing I have learned about Obama is not to assume that he means what he says! Barak Obama is a concessionist who leans heavily toward serving corporate needs and not upsetting Republicans in Congress. On healthcare (and financial regulations) Obama will not act without industry approval. Campaign contributions hang in the balance; but, so does his reputation among the electorate who want real change in the way healthcare is managed and financed.

The president continually puts forward "choice"; in his plan people could select physicians and hospitals. The implication or flat out assertion is that a government operated system would not provide choice. However, people are quite satisfied with Medicare because for one thing, it provides choice of doctors and hospitals. And this is not necessarily the case with HMOs and the health insurance corporations. Details in Obama's public option seem to be either unformulated or left intensionally vague. What are his proposals and goals? All I hear is a generalized notion, a slogan-sounding refrain of reform, much like this campaign chant of "change". But, we were never told what kind of change.

Various proposals are floated about in a deliberate effort to obfuscate healthcare reform and, especially, the public option. Single-payer was put to rest even before it could be debated. The electorate was told categorically, in the rare times it was even mentioned, that single-payer was a plan that would usher in "socialism", that it would lead somehow to government oppressions. I even heard the word "communism" in regards to the public option. Police, firefighters and military institutions are excluded from such broad categorizations.

Fiscal and social conservatives are out in full force attacking the public option on claims that it will increase the U.S. budget deficit, while quietly fearing that such a plan would provide much needed medical services to a class of people they would rather ignore. They want to shrink government and drastically reduce public services. Interestingly, when discussing costs of a government managed healthcare program, no mention is made about the U.S. military juggernaught and its affects on the national deficit (and quality of life).The elected war in Iraq will eventually cost three trillion dollars! And the eight-year war in Afghanistan, as Obama is set to intensify action there(to include Parkistan as well) will make budgetary matters much worse! And as I write, people in high places are talking about possible air strikes, by Israel, against Iran. Several Latin and South American nations may be under consideration as threats to American security. Money is somehow always available for military excursions of one kind or another. But, meeting the healthcare needs of the nation can not be afforded.

Howard Dean, MD, six-term govenor of Vermont and a 2004 presidential candidate has miraculously provided the nation with a solution to its healthcare catastrophy and, at a most propitious moment for President Obama. His Prescription For Real Healthcare Reform could have been written by Obama himself. Dean was former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Knowing his political curriculum vitae is important in critiquing his proposals.

The book will not be available at my budget-straped public library for some months to come. However, Amy Goodman at Democracy Now, devoted an entire program to interviewing Dr. Dean. He was promoting his book and basically Obama's reform, although the President is not entirely forthcoming on the details of an administration plan. Dean is admittedly a conservative and does not consider single-payer as a viable alternative. He claims to be neutral; but, as a Barak Obama faithful and an administration healthcare reform frontman, neutrality is a stretch. The timing of publication is not a coincedence. And although his reasonings will probably create no converts from his Democracy Now tour de force performance. His presentation sounded like a doctor in counseltation; it was as well-polished and sincere as any Obama speech.

Dean said, "I don't position myself against single-payer; but, I position myself for giving the American people choice." He went on to claim that a conservative country wants change--but change that is not "uncomfortable". As I view change, it is by definition unsettling in that it unseats the status quo. Dean seems to be speaking in an oxymoronic manner. The only people who will experience discomfort in a change to single-payer healthcare are those that profit from a sadistic and immoral Capitalistic health insurance system.

Dean was quite disingenuous in suggesting that single-payer "...was a plan that an academic would write in the Ivory Tower...." This tactic is a crudity reminiscent of the radical right! However, he speaks about the European single-payer created out of necessity during WWII, and that Europeans, including Winston Churchill loved it! And in an outrageous distortion he said that the employment-based U.S. (that also began in WWII)is "...something we like..." He goes on to say that Americans don't like the healthcare system as conducted. Yet, somehow, "...they like the kind of healthcare they get if they have insurance". This is pure Obamaesque nonsence and Orwellian double-speak.

Dean claims that Obama's plan is "politically practical". Well, Obama is a pragmatist, and what is politically practical today may not be tomorrow. With thousands of health industry lobbyists decending upon Congress and the White House, Dean is assisting the Obama administration in an attempt to regain control of the reform process that had slipped away through concessions not in any way reciprocated. Dean's book obviously carries the Obama imprimatur and probably the health insurance industry's stamp of approval.

As for Congress, a sizeable majority clearly represents health industry interests and banking the very generous corporate campaign contributions.