Matt Santos favors Medicare for all U.S. citizens! (Santos is the West Wing Democratic presidential candidate. Check out the Boston Globe‘s “Debate was fictional, issues were real“: “Democratic Congressman Matt Santos, played by Jimmy Smits, borrowed liberally — no pun intended — from Senator Ted Kennedy’s ”Medicare for All’ proposal.”)
Why not? Writes Alternet PEEK‘s Evan Derkacz:
Jonathan Tasini isn’t happy with reporting on the 30,000 layoffs recently announced by General Motors.
In addition to poor management and poor engineering, mentioned prominently in most articles, Tasini writes:
“But, staring you right in the face are the billions of dollars in health care costs that GM carries on its balance sheets. It is still startling to me that companies like GM, looking straight into the financial abyss, can’t shake off an ideological straight-jacket that prevents it from shouting loudly, ‘we need to extend Medicare to every person in America.'” In addition to the moral imperative, he argues, there’s an economic one, in order to compete in the global marketplace: … Read all of Evan’s post …
OPEN THREAD! (And when’s West Wing coming back?)
from seeing ‘Jarhead’ in the theater.
Anyone else see it yet? Did you like it?
I’m especially curious to hear what any of our veterans here thought of it.
I thought it was good. Not great, but good. I think you can take a lot of things out of it, but probably most of them are things you went in with.
We decided not to go after reading some of the reviews … but it looks like it could be interesting.
Do you ever go to IMDb? I go there all the time, look up the movie, and click on “External Reviews” to see what the critics have to say.
I love Kanye West’s music in Jarhead!
Yep, I go to IMDB all the time!
But I count reviews from people I know (or at least, am familiar with) as a lot more relevant than reviews that I read by a complete stranger.
I don’t want to say too much about the content of the film, in case other people want to see it. But it made me think, and it wasn’t exactly what I expected.
Susan, Did you ever get to see Capote? What did you think about it?
I did & I loved it. I couldn’t get it out of my mind for weeks?
I wrote a short review at ePluribus Media.
I liked the movie. It really wasn’t a pro-war movie. I just loved the reply Swafford gave to his drill srgt when he was asked how he ended up in basic training, “I got lost on my way to college.”
In my opinion, it is worth viewing.
Thanks for the link, I enjoyed your review!
I agree, I don’t think it was a pro-war movie, but like I said in my first comment, I think you take a lot of things out of the movie that you go in with.
I think if you went in pro-war, it probably didn’t change your mind.
I went in thinking more of the human cost of war; both our soldiers who are going to come back, and the casualties on all sides along the way.
It definitely provided me with the opportunity and impetus to think about those things.
Really — Why wouldn’t Medicare for all work. The system is already in place. Corruption is low (isn’t it?).
How difficult would it be to extend it?
Having said that much, I should say that since the Bushco took over, I have some doubts about trusting the whims of politicians with our healthcare. I mean, what would Bushco consider valid healthcare? What would they cover and what would they disqualify?
$10,000 annual deductable with ability to set up $10,000 per year pretax Health Savings Account to fund your out-of-pocket costs.
Oh yes, you forfeit unspent account funds annually.
Program administered by a credit card consortium.
Of course, the top 2% of the country income-wise would be entitled to the same benefits as the Senators and Congressman receive, without having to contribute a dime. Like the tax cuts, let the rest of us pay for it.
And the really sad thing is that no matter how extreme we think — they would be even more outrageous.
The idea that government is a way to share the burden has been so bent by years of republican “framing” that I’m not sure the general public knows about it.
Off the healthcare topic, I heard an interview on NPR with a the president of Amtrak who just got fired (?), the BushCo said he resigned, but he says he was forced out.
He was a terrific interviewee. They type who countered each snarky question with calm facts. At one point the person doing the interview asked how long we could go with Amtrak losing billions of dollars every year. And he stopped the guy and said that The passenger service doesn’t lose billions, it loses about 1/2 a million. The rest is for infrastructure that would have to be kept up for any form of transportation. That we don’t count highway maintenance expenses as a loss — and we shouldn’t look at rail maintenance as a loss either.
Really — he was great listen to the interview if you have time. Again and again, he drew the connection between a social need (people traveling) and government’s mission to facilitate it.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5022721
I’d love to have this guy working on the Health Care issue.
Well, I don’t know HOW I goofed up the link so bad. But at least the correct link ended up displayed (The link itself takes you to the Cafe, which isn’t bad — but isn’t the point).
So please cut and paste the displayed link and listen to the interview. It was great.
Well this govenrment doesn’t want you to travel…you might show up at a protest in DC!
I’ll have to give that a listen.
I’ve got to tell you, when he told that guy that Rail Passenger Service only lost 1/2 million a year, you could hear the interviewer’s jaw hit the floor.
We’ve heard about Amtrak hemoraging money for so many years — we all believe it.
And he also gave a clear explanation about why in would never work to privatize the maintenance. It’s way to complicated for me to type out here. But, he spoke so clearly, so simply anyone could follow it.
This guy is a talking genius. You know lots of people are smart. This guy was smart and knows how to talk.
Just think of all the times you listen to an interview and hear someone blow an opportunty to make a point. This guy didn’t lose a single opportunity.
Not medicare related, but Norman Solomon provides some insightful and disturbing perspective in this excellent article Getting Out of Iraq.
On another note, my broadband internet keeps going out at the worst times. Hurricane Wilma knocked the shit out of Comcast down here in So. Florida. So, I’m using free trial AOL and it’s driving me crazy. It cuts out every 10 minutes or so regardless of what I’m doing, and their customer service seems unable to understand the problem, let alone find a solution for it.
Now I know why they call it “AO Hell”!
Reading back over this comment, I’m embarrassed to see I’ve juxtaposed my piddling complaints about a trivial inconvenience like AOL in the same comment referencing the tragedy that is befalling the Iraqi people every moment of everyday. I almost deleted part of this automatically once I realized what I’d done, but then realized maybe it’s better to highlight the discomfort over it. I’ve become a lot less self-absorbed over the last year and a half, but there’s still a long way to go.
I’m remonstrating myself now mentally with the age old saying; “I used to cry I had no shoes until I met a person with no feet.”
…December 4. Here’s the blurb for the next episode:
UNDECIDEDS
8pm 2005-12-04 ALL NEW!
RACIAL CONTROVERSY IN LOS ANGELES SPELLS TROUBLE FOR SANTOS – Santos (Jimmy Smits) must face the challenge of visiting an African-American family in Los Angeles whose child was shot by a Latino police officer. CJ (Allison Janney) must manage a crisis between China and Kazakhstan. Also starring Brad Whitford, Richard Schiff, Kristin Chenoweth, Josh Malina and John Spencer. TV-PG
I went to the pharmacy today to pick up the medication that my mother needs to manage her lymphoma – since last month the price went from $98 for 50 pills (25 days worth) to $106. This was a increase from the drug company not our local pharmacy. The pharmacist, who we’ve known for years, told us that drug prices are set to go through the roof when Plan D kicks in come January 1st. Also, the word she’s getting is that there will be far fewer samples given to doctors to pass along to patients without insurance.
Medicare has something like a 3% overhead for administration while insurance companies have many times that. The VA provides low cost ($7 copay) prescriptions to those who qualify for coverage by being able to bargain down the prices from the drug companies – something that is forbidden in Plan D. We’re already at the point where many people are held hostage in their jobs because to leave would cost them medical coverage and it only takes one emergency to wipe out someone’s savings and others are losing coverage as companies cut back on benefits. Medicare for all would be a blessing compared to what we have now.
you talk about a warped mind, man i got one.</jesco>
Further proof that the cowboy can’t ride:
Not only can’t he ride, but he’s terrified of horses.
hahahahhahahah!
When Smits/Santos said why not remove the age limit from Medicare the light came on. I thought why aren’t we talking about that? Why isn’t that the obvious answer? We don’t need an enormous new program, we need to expand the risk pool in the perfectly good, well tested, smoothly functioning plan we already have. Granted, it would cost more, but it would be money well spent considering the hideous amounts we spend for private plans now that don’t provide adequate health care to far too many Americans.
OK, we have some work to do.
The Washington Post Article And it essentially pinned the win on Alda’s stronger improvisational acting performance – not necessarily on the issues.
FWIW – the On-Line poll at NBC put Santos over Vinick by almost 3 to 1.
Actual Zogby release
petty capitalists do not want national health insurance. it makes the workforce too mobile, and one would be forced to treat them better.
if you are a boss you can mistreat an employee who is afraid of getting fired and losing his/her health insurance.
how many people are in jobs they hate simply because it gives them health benefits?
oddly, it seems this drives the workforce into jobs which they are neither suited for nor careers that fully utilize their talents. it seems with a national health insurance system, we would have more people employed in jobs that they like, and that means they would work better, more efficiently, and that would help our economy.
when the rest of the industrialized world provides health insurance to their citizens it seems only ideology and greed prevents common sense from acting in the US on this issue.
I think that the health system we have deliberately represses small business. That it keeps most people from even dreaming of working for themselves. And makes it that much more likely that small business people will fail.
Big business always complains about the cost. But, there has to be a benefit to them or they wouldn’t keep supporting the way things are now. I think that benefit is the number of people who are willing to work in jobs they hate for the health care plan.
I think that the health system we have deliberately represses small business.
WOW! Talk about making the lightbulb go off in my brain. Katie, this is an amazing observation … wish you’d diary it.
One of my big problems when i had my own little home business was how the premiums went up. It was something like $125 per month for me and baby and then it got so it was almost $500/month and that was back in the early 1990s. God only knows how much it would be now.
You know, I think I did start a draft of a Diary on this for dKos a year ago or so.
I’ll see if I can find it and finish it. I know it was on my desktop for a long time (waiting for me to have “time” which needless to say hasn’t happened yet).
My father actually designed a single-pay healthcare plan back in the early 1990s. I’ve got a copy of it that he won’t let me post because the actual numbers are 10 years old.
It was a great plan. But people always treated him like a crackpot when he gave it to them. They didn’t realize that he’s a scientist and spent years and years gathering the data and research before writing it up.
Oh Katie, I’m excited.
Will you be sure to send me an e-mail when you do it?
In fact, e-mail me now … for something else … yeah. Be sure to!
Your father sounds like a fabulous human being.
e-mail sent.
And Dad is great. Always way ahead of his time. He’s railed against the public use of the word “conservative” for that wing of the Republican party since the 1960s. He’s always thought they were radicals.
kb i think you are right on target. the affect of a national health system would be a nation of self-employed independent business folk, entreprenuers, so to speak and would shift economic and political power away from the hands of concentrated wealth.
that is really the issue here.
it looks to me of like the workforce is being forced to a health care system that is not advantageous to them, but it must be for somebody else, it isn’t the poor, who have it even worse, so it must be to the benefit of the rich. that is just the way the world operates. its like gravity. rich folks set the agenda to their advantage because they have a greater stake in the outcome.
the only people who malign a national health care system are rich folk. you do not hear middle class and poor folk talking about how great a health care system america enjoys under private insurance.
public health care system overhead is 3%. meaning 97% of the money spent is on health care of the patient.
private health care system overhead is 18%, meaning 82% of the money spent is on the health care of the patient.
that is at least a 15% difference in bang for the buck. and a lot of that 15% is actually profits to the stock holders of the companies who gamble money on the health of their clients when involved in private health care.
this is nearly a $2,000,000,000,000/year enterprise. it is nearly equal to the sum of the total cost of government at the local, state, and federal level on the economy.
if we move to an all-inclusive government run, national health care system, between it and other government functions these two items would make make up approximately $4,300,000,000,000 of a 11,000,000,000,000 economy.
the private sector lives off of the profits of that $2,000,000,000,000 industry. those who do will not readily give up that investment.
it is not merely a matter of shifting to a program that increases the overall efficiency of the delivery system, you are talking about taking away rich people’s income on investments.
Wow! You just saved me from a whole diary. I wish you would post it as one. This open thread is too old for almost anyone to see it.