Robert Reich Called It Right

He said the USSC would uphold the "individual mandate" of Obama's "Affordable" Care Act, and that is exactly what happened.

Strangely enough, Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority. The vote was 5-4.

The mandate’s advocates said it was necessary to ensure that not only sick people but also healthy individuals would sign up for coverage, keeping insurance premiums more affordable. The law offers subsidies to poorer and middle-class households, varying with their incomes. It also provides subsidies to some businesses for insuring their workers.

The law requires states to expand Medicaid coverage for poor and nearly poor households. In all, tens of millions of people are expected to gain insurance from the law, according to the Congressional Budget Office, as part of a march toward universal coverage, a goal that has eluded legislators and presidents – including Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton – for generations.

The decision came on the last day of the term, which the justices extended by three days to deal with the crush of major issues. On Monday, the court delivered a mixed ruling on an Arizona law intended to crack down on illegal immigrants, which the Obama administration opposed.

Here is the decision in case people care to read it.

News, Comments, Etc.

No surprise as an appeals court has struck down the "Obamacare" requirement that ALL people must carry health insurance or face penalties.

The REAL result of this "reform" is companies will get rid of their health care benefits altogether, forcing people to pay for it themselves or simply go without.

It wouldn't surprise me if this was the real aim to begin with.
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OF COURSE poverty and family background are the biggest reasons there is a gap in "achievement" among students, but the privatizers don't care at all about this.

It is about dismantling public education because it is public.
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What does the Wisconsin election REALLY signify?
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Is Black America finally waking up from the spell of Obamaism, or is it too goddamned late?

Obama's Health Insurance "Reform"

isn't even a victory now that a judge has struck down parts of it.  No doubt it will go to the USSC.

There are very few things that unite people all across the political spectrum than this "mandated" shit, especially when those who are without health insurance now can't afford any private insurance.  The older you get and the sicker you are, the less likely you can afford it.

Bend Over Barry takes it in the ass--again.

He gave away the store, and people are now even in worse shape than before this "health care reform" crap passed.

The Health Care Mess

So-called health care legislation will still leave millions out in the cold and even ration care.

As long as the insurance companies are allowed to remain in the system, all reform will be nothing but a cruel hoax.

In the House Democrats’ proposal—America’s Affordable Health Choices Act—those individuals who do not have employer-based medical insurance, and who choose not to purchase coverage, would pay a penalty of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income, if they cannot demonstrate “hardship.” This component of the legislation comes under the subheading “Shared Responsibility.” The Senate health committee fine would be $750 per individual.

Critics of this “individual mandate” have pointed out that many struggling working families and the unemployed—who would find it difficult to pay hundreds of dollars a month in premiums—would be forced to gamble going without coverage and pay the penalty instead, which might average $1,000 in the House version.

While this penalty is steep, it would still be less than the total annual premium they would expect to pay for coverage. And after the penalty is paid, these families would still be without health care coverage. Only for those earning about $400,000 a year would the 2.5 percent penalty be more or equal to the average insurance premium.

This is almost like mandatory auto insurance. Unbelievable.

Health Care "Reform"

Of course people like Senator Blanche Lincoln are on the take from insurance companies, whether local or national. That is the sole reason there is opposition in Congress to single-payer health insurance, let alone any kind of dual insurance plan.

It's a big whoop-dee-doo. So what else is new?

Just Because

there is wide support for a government-run health care plan to compete with private insurers doesn't mean it will ever become reality.

The lobbyists are just too damned powerful for any change in the current mess.

Yep, I Have Been Slacking Off

writing much on this blog. A lot depends on the news, but I get so depressed reading about our worsening economy and now the apparent attempt by so-called Democrats to basically scuttle true health care reform for decades I can hardly stand it.

Health care is a right, not a privilege, but tell that to our congresspeople who are bought and paid for by the medical-industrial complex of for-profit hospitals, Big Pharma, health insurance companies, and powerful medical associations.

While President Obama is trying, I guess, to reform health care or rather health insurance by promoting a public alternative ala John Edwards' plan from last election, there are piles of congressional opposition, including that from Joseph Lieberman, senator from Aetna, as Ralph Nader once wittily called him. You know anything Obama proposes will be watered down in the first place, but even a watered down public health care plan which isn't even single-payer, is too much for our cretins in Congress. They feel this would be the first step towards single-payer, and that can't be allowed to happen.

And of course we have interest groups like the American Medical Association, which no longer represents the vast majority of physicians in this country but is fully aligned with Big Pharma and the like, trying to flex its muscle just as it did when Medicare and Medicaid were put into place, but Obama is now saying this country can't wait for health care reform.

It's all about increasing profits for the health care industry, which shouldn't be an "industry" to begin with but a service. While all of this political gamesmanship goes on, more people are thrown out of work, more people cannot get health care except when they are practically dying and have to use expensive hospital emergency care, and more people's life expectancy in this country goes down the drain.

Health care is a major scandal in this country, and it never had to be this way in the first place.

Obama went to the heart of the lion's den today.

Campaign Notes.

John Edwards is royally pissed off at the insurance companies who screw people over on medical care.

You can count on him to fight back against any shit leveled at him.

Campaign Notes.

The media continue with their two-person narrative of the Democratic presidential nomination by claiming it's all about Obama's "movement," a movement that is little more than a pile of shit, to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

It just goes to show how dumb people can be when it comes to picking candidates.
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Obama hates mandates for health care coverage, and that's probably because his half-baked idea isn't really meant to reform or revamp health insurance in this country.
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Hillary's support is largely about name recognition rather than qualifications.

And not all women Democrats are supportive of her candidacy, although most if not all of them will vote for her if she gets the nomination.
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John Edwards had a few pointed words for Obama's most ardent fan.
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Paul Krugman

eviscerates Barack Obama's half-baked health care plan.

And this guy has so huge a following among those who erroneously believe he is a "progressive." This is all based on one speech, a speech not even that great.

As the World Turns.

After piles of criticism, Wal-Mart is revamping its health insurance program so that more employees are covered.
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For blacks, the "American Dream" is even less a reality than for everybody else, and for everybody else it is almost nonexistent.
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Now

this is interesting:

To begin with, not everyone makes the $165,000 a year or so that members of Congress do. In fact, at least 100,000 federal workers — at least 5 percent of the active work force — do not have health insurance. In many cases, according to the union that represents the workers, they consider even the cheapest options within the federal plan unaffordable. The lowest-priced family coverage offered by Blue Cross, for example, costs the employee about $2,400 a year.

Of course, Medicare, a single-payer program for the elderly, should be expanded to cover everybody. We already have "socialized medicine" for some people because the private system can't do shit when it is motivated by turning over a profit.

Campaign Notes.

Hillary Clinton unveiled her health care plan yesterday, which is little more than pandering to corporate interests.

It's totally unworkable, because people who don't have company-provided health insurance won't be able to afford private insurance.

Talk about having her head in the sand.

The Booming Economy Casualty List for 8/23-8/31.

Our booming economy is busting right along.

Earthlink--900 jobs lost

Certainly the United States

could expand Medicare to include everybody and thus we would have a universal health care system, but our politicians simply don't have the will to stand up to the private insurance industry.

Here is Yet

another reason we need to have national health insurance.

When so-called middle-class people do not have health insurance at all, let alone any that is decent, something has gone horribly wrong with our system.

And I won't even touch the scandal of dental insurance in this country.