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Obamacare Supporters Oppose ColoradoCare

By Renee Parsons | CounterPunch | August 24, 2016

As the nation’s largest health insurance companies scale back  participation in  Obamacare (aka Affordable Care Act) creating what insurance jargon refers to as a death spiral, it was only a matter of time before state Democratic leaders and their agents announced their opposition to ColoradoCare (Amendment 69), a medicare-for-all health care system that will appear on the statewide November 8th ballot.

State Democratic establishment leaders who had already announced their opposition to ColoradoCare include Governor John Hickenlooper, former Governor Bill Ritter and Senator Michael Bennett who is running for re-election.

In an effort to salvage what is left of the President’s most significant (and perhaps only) legislative achievement as Obamacare struggles for relevance, ProgressNow Colorado (PN) held a press conference on August 17th (“ProgressNow Colorado Opposes Amendment 69, Calls For Nationwide Health Reform”) to announce their opposition to CC.

Featured speaker at the PN news conference was State House Majority Leader Cristina Duran, considered a ‘rising star’ who recently spoke on behalf of Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention.   In 2016, it has been reported that Duran received campaign contributions from at least a dozen special interest groups associated with the health insurance industry.

In addition, Colorado NARAL joined the PN news event, again voicing their opposition to CC.   The lack of availability for abortions is what keeps NARAL functioning. The obvious irony is that if CC is adopted (which will allow abortions), NARAL’s raison d’etre will cease to exist and they will be able to close their doors.

Since it is essential for the President to have a functioning Affordable Care Act to top his Legacy List of accomplishments, it would be foolishly naïve to believe that the DNC’s fingerprints are not all over the opposition to ColoradoCare.

As the state’s ‘largest on line environmental and advocacy organization,’ the PN Colorado’s website identifies its vision to “act as a public relations shop promoting progressive ideals while pushing back on bad policies and bad behavior…”   The archives of PN press releases reveals the organization acting as a thinly-veiled extension of the neo-liberal Democratic party as a pr flack rather than an issue-oriented, independent thinking progressive organization focused on societal concerns of Colorado citizens.

Curiously, the PN press release called for “nationwide healthcare reform” but isn’t that what the Democrats offered as the Affordable Care Act in 2010?

Since March, 2012, PN has issued twenty press releases solely dedicated to the benefits of Obamacare including “Colorado Progressives Celebrate Upholding of Obamacare” (June 28, 2012) and “Colorado Progressives Celebrate Another Big Obamacare Victory”  (June 25, 2015).

In retrospect, it is now apparent that any mention of CC’s successful petition drive with 156,000 submitted signatures in October, 2015 was a deliberate omission by PN. Even as ‘Petitions Delivered Let CU Students Attend GOP Debate” earned a press release from PN on October 22, 2015,  the CC ability to secure a place on the 2016 ballot  (November 9, 2015), no small feat, was not applauded by the PN.

State Senator Irene Aquilar (also a doctor), one of the authors of CC, said that when “Organizations mislabeled as ‘progressive’ choose to support the status quo, choose moneyed influence over the lives of the 535 Coloradans who die each year because of lack of health care, it makes me angry.”

As the Colorado Democratic party has exposed its true nature; willing to choose narrow political gain and greed over the long-term health of their citizens, they have revealed little social conscience, except when its suits their partisan agenda.

But what do we expect from a party that has opened its doors to Wall Street money, big business that continues to send American jobs abroad, trade agreements that undermine a nation’s sovereignty, pro war neo cons, drone attacks on civilians, support for the MISI (military-intelligence-surveillance industry) and other corporate globalist leeches that care nothing about our native country or its citizens.

Originally dubbed in 2010 by the President as ‘comprehensive health reform’ and given the Act’s controversial nature throughout its short legislative life, it should come as no surprise that success of the Act relied on competition between insurance companies [and] has failed abysmally. The Act was never a panacea to provide health care; it was always a vehicle to provide insurance to cover health care costs. Therein lies a big difference between Obamacare and CC.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, competition among insurance companies will be completely absent in five states (Alabama, Alaska, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wyoming).

In what promises to be a futile attempt at a legislative fix, the Democrats have come up with a ‘reinsurance’ scheme to cover insurance industry losses while attempting to cover the cost of individual coverage. The mounting evidence, however, confirms that the politics of statutory resuscitation is formidable, if not impossible.

Apparently no one at the White House realized how many sick Americans there are, how expensive it would be to provide them with insurance coverage and that healthy Americans would prefer to take the risk and pay the penalty rather than pay double digit premium increases and exorbitant deductibles. Who did not see that coming?

Who believed that younger, healthier Americans would jump at the chance to sign up, take on health care debt on top of student loan debt – just to impress the President they had supported in 2008? My faith in the millennial generation is restored knowing they have the smarts to put the numbers together.

Some of those departing big leaguers who are abandoning their health care customers due to lack of profits include Aetna which covered 900,000 people in fifteen states and has announced a cut back to four states and suffered a loss of $300 M; Humana is cutting back its coverage from 1,350 counties to 156; Blue Cross lost $715 M in just three states and the nation’s largest health care insurance company, UnitedHealthGroup lost $450 M in 2015  and is cutting back to three states.

In late July, the Department of Justice filed suit to prevent the Humana – Aetna and the Cigna – Anthem mergers from taking place. By mid August, Aetna and Anthem informed the DOJ that they would totally pull out of Obamacare unless their mergers were approved. Any bets on whether these mergers will go forward after the Presidential election?

To date, 70% of the original Obamacare insurance participants have backed out because of financial problems with only seven of the original twenty three insurance providers still offering policies.

Those insurance companies not exiting the marketplace have announced premiums with a nationwide average increase of 24% that is not affordable for many families and yet many Americans have an urgent need for health care.

With a $600,000 bank balance, CC is up against what looks like a omnipotent wall of opposition not limited to such community-minded organizations as the Sheet Metal Workers Union, the Denver Center for Performing Arts, the Colorado Black Chamber of Commerce and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, all of which chose to publicly oppose the CC rather than remain in the background and thus support their fellow citizens who need reliable, affordable health care.

Meanwhile the main opposition group, Coloradans for Coloradans, which crowed about the Democrats joining the opposition, have collected $1 M from Anthem, $450,000 from UnitedHealthCare Services, Healthone Systems and Centura Health $250,000 each, Cigna Health $100,000, PHRMA $100,000, the Colorado Association of Realtors $100,000 and so forth – you might imagine the rest of the list.

Contributions from some of the very same insurance companies that have either pulled out or are dramatically scaling back their participation is indicative of how corporations can afford to sit and wait – until the Federal government sweetens the pot for their re-entry into the healthcare marketplace.

In addition, the Koch Brothers Americans for Prosperity are partners with the Democrats in pummeling  Amendment 69 into the ground. This may be the first time that the Koch Brothers and the Democratic party have officially and publicly lined up on the same issue, excluding campaign contributions.

If the Democrats (along with the medical care/health insurance industrial complex and Koch Bros) succeed in defeating CC, they can expect to take the blame for depriving Colorado citizens of an alternative to Obamacare which will predictably continue its spiral.

If, by some miracle of divine intervention, Colorado voters approve Amendment 69, they are telling the Obama Administration that they have no faith in the President’s Affordable Care Act, no faith in the Federal government to fix it  and no faith in the Democratic party to protect the public interest.

Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist and staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31

August 24, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Citizen K in the USA

By William Manson | Dissident Voice | December 27, 2013 

In his novel The Trial, Franz Kafka conjured up the nightmarish, surreal yet strangely familiar world of an ordinary person trapped in a web of bewildering governmental repressions. Inexplicably, the eponymous protagonist “Joseph K” suddenly finds himself under relentless investigation—and is then abruptly arrested. Throughout his ordeal, the charges will remain undisclosed. (“Is it political?” gasps Jeanne Moreau, in Orson Welles’ film version; or, as Orwell’s Winston Smith would say, “is it a thought-crime?”) “Free” from incarceration while he awaits trial, Joseph travels through a labyrinth of impersonal offices, baffling court procedures, and inscrutable explanations–only to find himself, once again, back at the beginning of his quest for answers.

The sadistic travesty of justice perpetrated at Guantanamo immediately comes to mind. But what about conditions here in the “Homeland”? Trapped in endless litigation–or in the clutches of creditors or foreclosers—how many millions of U.S. citizens also feel like Joseph K? At one time or another, highly complicated legal quandaries and arcane bureaucratic tangles plague most of us. Lately, however, we’ve been inclined to worry more about our Internet communications: are they being surreptitiously intercepted and stored permanently (PRISM)? In order to be periodically retrieved, scrutinized and “analyzed”? If so, why?

The NSA Director, appearing on TV’s Sixty Minutes, hastened to reassure all (mere) citizens that–despite its mega-billion-dollar budget and ongoing expansion (the giant Utah data-storage complex)–the NSA is currently only actively focusing on less than “60 U.S. persons.” Was Gen. Keith Alexander telling “the whole truth” (to use a quaint phrase)? Or was he giving us, as did James Clapper (DNI) in his unsworn congressional testimony, the “least untruthful” answers he felt obliged to offer?

Therefore, our average Joseph K today is just a tiny bit worried that most (if not all) of his communications are being permanently stored, and subject at any future time to sophisticated “analysis”—under whatever rationale meddlesome technocrats may come up with. If not by the neighborly “analysts” at the NSA, then what about the other dozen-or-so “intelligence” agencies? What mischief are they up to? Joseph, who finds everyday life complicated enough, also finds himself wondering about all those marketing “research” firms, think-tank contractors, credit bureaus, and so on. How are they “mining” and storing his personal data? He doesn’t know.

But enough of that—Joseph K has enough troubles without succumbing to an obsessive paranoia! He’s even tempted to get rid of the Internet all together: his “service” stinks and he’s always hated computers. But wait! Our Joseph K has just been told—by some faceless bureaucrat—that he must quickly go the website “Healthcare.gov” and register to shop for (mandatory) private health insurance. Again, Joseph finds himself perplexed: frankly, he loathes hospitals and drug companies—and has managed quite well without them. Moreover—or so Joseph insists–if he finds himself suffering from terminal cancer, he may choose to die—rather than subject himself to dubious, degrading (and still-expensive) “procedures.” (And Joseph K is also aware that preventable medical errors are, by some estimates, the “third leading cause of death” in the U.S. today.) Joseph, you see, is one of those old-fashioned curmudgeons, the type that once embraced a radical-populism and hated Big Business and Big Government with equal fervor. He even thinks (can you believe it?) that the entire insurance industry is some kind of racket—and wants no part of it!

And admittedly, our Joseph K is not very “computer-literate” and finds it more than a little exasperating to try to comprehend all the provisions of a jerry-built “Affordable” Care Act. Couldn’t the government, he asks, have mailed (simplified) application forms to each and every citizen (counted in the 2010 U.S. Census)? He’s always found legalistic small-print, provisos and disclaimers more than a little confusing (and annoying). Given such typically over-complicated ordeals, Joseph understandably has become a fanatic for simplification. Why can’t “the government,” he again recently demanded, simply establish “Medicare for All”? After all, he pointed out, “we” spend trillions for “defense”—and from whom, exactly? He doesn’t know (but was under the impression that the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race ended some time ago).

Well, to make a long story short: our friend Joseph, feeling trapped between corrupt insurance giants and coercive big government, was so demoralized that he decided to leave all this behind. So much so, it turns out, that he urgently asked his creator Kafka to return him back to the world of fiction–wherein he will at least continue his Sisyphean struggle against coercion with some measure of defiance and tragic dignity.

~

William Manson is the author of The Psychodynamics of Culture (Greenwood Press).

December 28, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Real Health Care Advocates Should Support Repeal of the Insurance Mandate

By Kevin Zeese | Dissident Voice | March 26th, 2012

It’s Our Economy, the organization I co-direct with Margaret Flowers, MD, Single Payer Action and 50 doctors filed an amicus brief in HHS v. Florida, the challenge to the Affordable Care Act being heard in the Supreme Court this week.

We support health care reform but oppose the insurance mandate.  Merely removing two words from existing law will achieve the President’s stated goals of universal, affordable and guaranteed health care.  By removing the words “over 65” from the Medicare law, every American will have health care based on a proven public health care model that has been in existence since 1965.  This will control costs and immediately provide health care to everyone in the United States.

Forcing Americans to buy insurance is both unconstitutional and bad policy.  Even the most favorable estimates of the Affordable Care Act predict that tens of millions of Americans will not have health insurance when it is fully implemented in 2019. The number of employers offering health benefits will decline under the ACA pushing employees into the individual insurance market where coverage is skimpier and more expensive.  The cost of premiums continues to rise and insurance coverage continues to shrink, putting patients at risk of personal bankruptcy when they suffer a serious accident or illness.

The United States already spends enough to provide health care to all.  As the amicus brief states:

Studies conducted by the nonpartisan General Accounting Office and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office have consistently concluded that if a national single payer system were implemented in the United States, administrative cost-savings alone would be enough to guarantee universal coverage without increasing overall healthcare spending.

In addition, improved Medicare for all will slow the growth in the cost of health care. The cost of health care under Medicare is growing more slowly than private insurance-based health care, despite the fact that it deals with America’s elderly and disabled populations, groups that generally need more health care services.  Unlike private insurance, under Medicare the increased cost is not due to administrative costs and bureaucracy. Medicare’s administrative costs have been consistently about 2% while private insurance is 16% administrative costs.

Instead, the ACA builds and expands the system of private insurance. This system is among the least efficient of any healthcare system currently operating in developed nations.  The brief states:  “In 2009, 28 healthcare expenditures accounted for 17.4 percent of GDP in the United States, compared with only 9.6 percent in the average OECD [The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] nation” and “measured per capita, healthcare expenditures in the United States ‘are by far the highest among OECD countries.’”

Medicare provides health services that people like, as the brief points out:  “In addition to achieving universal coverage for Americans aged 65 and older and maintaining consistently low administrative costs, Medicare is also highly rated by senior citizens who are its primary beneficiaries – 51 percent of whom give their health insurance an ‘excellent” rating.’”

If the US Congress had considered an evidence-based approach to health reform instead of writing a bill that funnels more wealth to insurance companies that deny and restrict care, it would have been a no brainer to adopt improved Medicare for all. All the data points to a single payer system as the only way to accomplish universal health care and control health care costs.

It is also bad precedent to allow the federal government to mandate all Americans buy a corporate product.  This takes corporate welfare to new levels of extreme.  If this is upheld, will a future president facing an economic crisis require Americans to buy cars made in the USA – of course, with a government subsidy?  Or, will the pension crisis in the United States be ‘solved’ by setting up a pension exchange of JP Morgan, Bank of America, Well Fargo, Chase and Citibank and require Americans to buy a federally subsidized pension from Wall Street?

Finally, an improved Medicare for all system will give everyone in the United States the greatest control of their own healthcare.  The insurance industry will be removed from between doctors and patients.  Doctors will not have to convince an insurance, profit-minded, bureaucrat to pay for a treatment.  And, people will no longer be threatened with increased premiums, decreased coverage and financial ruin caused by an insurance industry that puts profits before people.

We filed the amicus brief because forcing people to purchase a flawed product, private health insurance, is not necessary and will not achieve the goals of universal, guaranteed and affordable health care. There is a health care model in the US already that will achieve these goals – that’s improved Medicare for all. Medicare for all is constitutional and simple to attain – just drop a few words from existing law and we will be on the path to joining the rest of the civilized world when it comes to health care.

Kevin Zeese is executive director of Voters for Peace.

March 26, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | Leave a comment