After listening to the end of the Great Healthcare Debate, I was spurred to write an article on my blog ( http://cindik.com/spirituality/trans-cendental/2009/09/why-for-profit-in... ) about "Why For-Profit Insurance Doesn't Work for Health Care".

To summarize:

1) Health care insurance is not like auto accident insurance. Both sides use this comparison and it is faulty. Health care insurance is more like an extended warranty or maintenance agreement.

2) The very same forces that encourage providers to increase quality an decrease price as a way to compete for frequent customers works *backwards* for insurance, particularly health insurance. It is profitable to reduce the frequent customers, so cost can go up and quality/service down for the sickest among us.

More at my post at http://cindik.com/spirituality/trans-cendental/2009/09/why-for-profit-in...

Inside the Mind of Joe Wilson!

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/09/11/joe_wilson/index.html?so...

From the first paragraph of the above article!

As we rightfully remember September 11th, 2001 and the tragedies of that day for the United States, my thoughts also move forward to September 14th of that same year and a courageous but lone vote made by Rep. Barbara Lee to oppose the use of violent force in retaliation. In explanation Lee said, “There must be some of us who say, let’s step back for a moment and think through the implications of our actions today — let us more fully understand its consequences… Far too many innocent people have already died.” This voice of reason was drowned out by a country ready to proceed with the fervor of a Holy War. The voice was outnumbered 420 to 1.

Sorry, that is David Sirota.

Do Americans really care about our soldiers' mental health?

http://www.opednews.com/articles/US-Military-Mental-Health-by-Ted-Newcom...

The medical insurance industry is nothing but a money handler. I call them nothing but billers.

It's like a lawyer has a secretary and she(the secretary) starts billing HIS (the lawyer's) clients for her time to bill them. She charges more and more until the lawyer's clients are paying her as much as the lawyer. Finally at one point the secretary quits her job, gets a fancy office and hires a lawyer to be HER employee.

It's really weird and it's a racket. When you add in the life or death decisions the Medical insurance industry brings to the mix, its a deadly racket. Killing for a living.

Just what all will we submit to at the demand of a self appointed, killer-for-greed, fallacious authority figure. Further, that fallacious authority figure has no real authority outside of the power of their money. Not legal, not moral, not anything. Because what they do is absolutely crime on the level of an individual. i cannot neglect my dying mother to expedite my inheritance without being considered a criminal.

The whole arrangement is based on a fallacy of authority that is literally breaking the laws that pertain to all other business and people. We are hypnotized by a lie. Hypnotized into believing we are to do as we're told like children in a classroom run by an enormous and cruel tyrant. The Milgram Experiment at the National Level.

Re: "You can get a little of the flavor of this by reading the poster these southerners put out against Lincoln at the time"

'Cannot verify poster as originating in the 19th century. However, it does express Southern conservative anti-Lincoln attitudes.

When are progressives going to realize that the purpose of insurance companies is not to provide insurance bt it is to amass money to invest for its stockholders? No one is entitled to insurance. The debate should be about increasing entitlement. Basic health care should be a right and paid for by the federal government. There is no reason for insurance companies to be involved at all in basinc health care delivery...

what is the ceo of a health care insurance company? he's a saleman and they have sold are country a bag of lies. when has a car saleman made l.7 billion dollars? we need reform and to get that we need choices. a public option would give me and everyone else a chance to have health care. If the health insurance industry wants to be fair, why don't they start giving refunds to the families that don't use their insurance in a month....give the monthly bill back they didn't use so why keep their money.

DDay,

Yes, I was there and was a beneficiary of the 18-year-old drinking age at the time (even tho I didn't drink back then.) At that time, WI colleges were categorized (by students) by how close the bars were to the campuses (i.e., the top "drinking schools.") 'Don't know about current stats, either, but WI has been leader in most alcohol comsumption for quite some time. I wonder if it's all the Germans (myself included) --- beer in Milwaukee and Oktoberfest in La Crosse, etc.

First I want to thank you for what you do. I have listened and agreed with your positions from the first time I heard your show. I am not sure if you were doing it from back east then but I feel you bring civility and a well thought out view of the world. I am proud to live in the same community here in Portland.
We are similar in age and although you grew up in the Mid-West and I in South-Eastern Idaho our backgrounds and the aspirations of our parents were similar. Although very conservative my parents stressed hard work and community service. They believed that you have nothing until you give something back. They taught me we will be judged by the way we treat the least among us. Now I hear you and Bernie say the same thing every week.
I know you have little time for long winded emails so my point is this. I believe the country owes its citizens an education, health care, a dignified retirement, and sense of value that does not revolve around an economic race to the bottom.
I worked as touring rock musician for many years and considered it the “American Dream”. However I gave nothing back. In reality I had very little worth giving. After that I became journey level carpenter and worked like a dog to save for a home and a retirement all the while watching the middle class deteriorate. I lost my carpenter job a few months after 9/11 and being in my forties decided to go back to school and get a GED. I happened to be at the community college getting my GED on the day folks sign up for classes and decided to take a few just to see if I could do it. I eventually received my degrees in Social Science and Geography then a Graduate degree in GIS Urban planning. This was accomplished by blowing through my savings, playing music every weekend, taking the odd carpentry job, and getting on a social program that allowed me to collect almost 2 years of unemployment during retraining. Also I took out about 4 years of education loans. I should mention my wife went through school and finished her BA degree at the same time and my children are grown. I was so proud of my wife for teaching English in China, also myself for landing a job here in Multnomah County as a GIS cartographer. I was sure we would live the dream now no matter what happened politically in this county.
Not long after she finished school my wife suffered a severe spinal injury requiring multiple surgeries and ongoing medical care. I was lucky to have medical insurance when I needed it. We had been without any medical insurance for much of our lives because it was just too expensive. My dream has become my nightmare. Even with the best medical coverage and a good job I cannot pay the mortgage, household bills and student loans. I see myself losing everything in the not so distant future.
If someone like me who worked hard and believed in the dream can be ruined by simply not having two incomes. I fear for everyone in America.
In my job at the county each transaction or conveyance of property comes across my desk for evaluation and mapping. I must tell you I see more foreclosures than anything else and it has not let up a bit. I do not want you to quote me but for your own information it is many thousands just this year in this county alone.
I know that although I am hanging on by the skin of my teeth. I am the lucky one. I do hope for change and something better. I believe it is not too late. I have been an active democrat since the 1972 elections. I imagine a world where the Kennedys lived, where McGovern won and there was strict antitrust enforcement. I am sure we would have had the problems and scandals of entrenched power, but I also think we would have had a more honest and open dialog with our representatives’ the way we do with you and Bernie. Perhaps we would have had a world where the fortunate helped the “great unwashed” instead of blaming and despising them.
When I read “blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth”. I wonder if Mathew meant: you get to lay under six feet of it after suffering at the hands of the ruthless and greedy. My real point being we need a “million man march in tin foil hats” and we need it now.

Thom,
I don't know what I was more upset about, Obama's speech or the "analysis" by so many lefties and progressives that Obama "hit it out of the ballpark." After listening to your show yesterday, I realized that I was not crazy! I feel that Obama betrayed not only the grassroots, but the American people, by giving big insurance and big pharma everything they wanted--at our expense. He shrunk the public option down to a size (5%) where it can now be drowned in a bathtub (might as well use right-wing talking points for a right-wing plan). Obama's "public" option is not really public, and definitely not an option for the vast majority of Americans. Nor did he offer any other plan to curb price gouging. Thanks for your leadership on this issue--you have demonstrated more intelligence than most other "progressive" talk show hosts.