- Wendell Potter, former Cigna mouthpiece, talks about why he had to get out of the health insurance business and why we need health care reform.
- Paul Krugman on the public option: why we need it and what the current issues might signal about Obama
- The Opinionator discusses the John Mackey furor
- Another Krugman blog posting includes a useful diagram.
- At electoral-vote.com, the August 17 posting discusses how health care is provided in Holland and elsewhere. (I'll try to put up a permalink when he backfiles the Aug. 17 post.)
- My co-worker Josiah Carlson rants about what happened to him the other day. I laughed and laughed at "you are idiots." Read it and see to whom he directed that.
A couple of points. First, Josiah and I work for a highly-visible, rich, corporation, and yet....one of the health care plans offered can't gets its act together to make appropriate and needed referrals. The phrase "H1N1 flu" should light a fire under them. You can bet that it drives a geek like me crazy to hear about basic data-management issues like the ones Josiah describes.
Second, I'm a Kaiser member, because of the kinds of issues Josiah ran into. I hear mixed things about some Kaiser medical centers, but I'm pretty happy with Oakland and have gotten good care: no issues with referrals, with getting in to see my doctor, with getting appropriate tests. It's also true that I am healthy as a horse and it's probably that I would be having quite a different experience if I were chronically ill or permanently disabled. (A friend directs a disability rights organization that has been involved with accessibility-issues lawsuits against Kaiser, so I've heard plenty about this.)
Third, if you give a damn about the public option and the success of health care reform, call your Senators and Representatives and let them know about.
Lastly, do read the Wendell Potter interview I link to.
We may not get health care reform out of this, but we are surely getting a very clear demonstration of the failure of democracy in this country because of corruption in the congress.
ReplyDelete65% of Americans want a public option and the congress has all but drowned this puppy in the tub.
Why? Because those in congress depend on the health insurance and drug industries to fund campaigns.
Congress isn't working on behalf of the American people - it is hostage to special monied interests.
You wonder why the terrorists bother to hatch their plots against us - we have pretty much destroyed democracy here on our own.
Sadly true, though....before corporations, political machines ran things to a greater extent than one might like.
ReplyDeleteI've updated this posting again, btw.
You're right about political machines running things in the past. But at least the political machine had to deliver results to the people - not just a bigger return for the stockholders.
ReplyDelete