WENDELL POTTER COMES CLEAN ~ WHAT WILL THE INSURANCE COMPANIES DO?

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Michael Moore and Wendell Potter and the movie Sicko

Bill Moyers

Wendell Potter on the Anti-SiCKO Smear Campaign on Countdown with Keith Olbermann -- 11/17/10

Countdown with Keith Olbermann

ARE WE NUTS? COUNTING ON OUR VICES TO KEEP US HEALTHY AND ALIVE

FUNDING HEALTH CARE WITH CIGARETTES

Insurance Companies are not a part of “We the People”. They should not have a seat at the table to determine how the congress or the President should deal with our people’s health care. They are in business to make money from our health insurance premiums. They don’t care if we get health care coverage. They care about how much money they can make.

I’ve always wondered about how we try to fund programs on such things as our vices. For example, the targeted and specific taxes placed on packs of cigarettes for various things. The fact that we would fund health care with taxes on cigarettes is obscene, amoral and lacking intelligence. Can we think beyond short-term funding? Can we project into the future and what is sensible? Sometimes we get what we pay for. In this case, using cigarette taxes to pay for good programs is just plain mindless.

What if people stop smoking? Then, who will pay for our health care? How will we pay for the other things that are paid for with cigarette taxes already? What if we continue to set ourselves up to count on people to smoke? As the funding needs increase, it will be necessary to want the number to increase of smokers. This is ridiculous, don’t you think? To count on our vices to keep us healthy and alive? Sounds like sick-thinking to me.

Watch the "related" movie clip on the site that you can go directly to by hovering over my post title.

JOHN CONYERS of Michigan has a bill that needs the support of “We The People”. The following is taken from his web page.

H. R. 676, “The United States National Health Insurance Act,”
Or “Expanded & Improved Medicare For All”

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In 2003, Representative Conyers first introduced HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act (USNHI). This bill would establish a unique American universal health insurance program with single payer financing. As a publicly financed, privately delivered health care system that improves and expands the already existing Medicare program, it would be available to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories.

The goal of the legislation is to ensure that all Americans will have access, guaranteed by law, to the highest quality and most cost effective health care services regardless of their employment, income or health care status. They would receive all medically necessary primary care, dental, mental health, prescription drugs, and long term care services by the physician of their choice, with no restrictions on what providers they could visit. With 47 million uninsured Americans, and another 50 million who are underinsured, the time has come to change our inefficient and costly fragmented non-system of health care. The end of John Conyers web page excerpt. From the link:
http://www.house.gov/conyers/news_hr676.htm

Is children's health care funding all smoke?

By Justin Thompson

(AXcess News) Washington - When Sen. Jim Bunning, R-KY., spoke on the Senate floor Thursday, it came as no surprise that he argued against expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program, as did many of his Republican colleagues.

But Bunning, the two-term senator from the Bluegrass State, objected to more than just the idea of a "government-run health care system."

He has a problem with the bill's funding: namely a proposed 61 cent increase in federal taxes on tobacco products.

"The tobacco tax funding mechanism is an irresponsible way to pay for children's health care," he said. "The increased tax is fundamentally unfair to my state and the surrounding states."

But the government should worry about more than just the bill's equity. Raising the federal excise tax, he said, would drive away the source of the program's funding by pressing Americans to quit smoking.

The American Cancer Society estimates that for every 10 cent rise in the tobacco tax, 4 percent of smokers over 18 quit.

"If we were honest, and truly wanted to fully fund SCHIP spending with a tobacco tax, the federal government would have to encourage people to smoke," he said…
From the link:
http://axcessnews.com/index.php/articles/show/id/12555

Sicko - the movie's web page:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/dvd/
Sicko is out on DVD. I know there are people who simply won't watch this movie because they don't like Michael Moore. I like him. Some people like Bush. I don't. It seems that people who like Bush don't like Michael Moore.

SICKO AND GW BUSH

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http://youtube.com/watch?v=fwc5YSAc-7g

I’m Not Ready to Make Nice by the Dixie Chicks

Part I SICKO

Oh, no! I love where I live, but I saw the movie SICKO tonight and immediately the thought of moving to another country entered my mind. I admit I am a person who agrees with Michael Moore, politically. I admit that I believe we should have health care for all people. Yes, I said “All”. I don’t get why people complain that we would be taxed in order to have such health care. Yes. So? Watch SICKO and then talk to me. We are paying for the IRAQ INVASION. Well, the tax increase to pay for IRAQ is delayed. But we will pay. And pay. And pay. In more than one way.

I wonder how immigrants are treated in Canada. At least they aren’t making plans to build a wall to keep us out. Yet. After this movie, maybe they will. I couldn’t help but think of the Mexicans while watching SICKO. Maybe, the American Dream isn’t so dreamy.

Part II LET FREEDOM RING FROM THE MOUNTAINTOP. IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH PRESIDENT BUSH AND VICE-PRESIDENT CHENEY. Please! I can’t take it anymore. What in the name of sense is wrong, American citizens? Have we lost our backbones?

This guy is walking all over our constitution, our code of decency (Katrina, for one example) and our rights in a democracy and yet where is our “We the People” outrage? Are we waiting for someone else to notice? Are we waiting for our neighbors to do it for us? We don’t own our government, it owns us. I feel like shouting “Wake up!! What kind of America do you want? What kind of America is it that we have?!” We have allowed paid lobbyists to own our legislators. We have allowed our elections to be corrupt. We allow our President to rob us of our constitutional rights and ignore Americans that are not putting money in his pocket. And yet, it feels like we are supposed to just sit back and take this crap.

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I agree with Keith Olbermann

“I CALL FOR Bush AND Cheney To Resign”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLnyGq-XgFs

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Michael Moore’s site:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/

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“NEVER AGAIN”

Words that mean nothing without political will.

Where there is a will there is always a way,

and where there is no will there is no way,

Mr. Bush

STOP AND PREVENT GENOCIDE

Darfur families need our attention and action, NOW!

www.savedarfur.org

www.genocideintervention.net

www.sudandivestment.com

www.ajws.org

www.aiusa.org

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What good is a democracy

that has lost its moral compass?

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Acknowledging the Only Citizens Who Aren’t Immigrants

Because July 4 is the day the United States celebrates Independence Day, I acknowledge that the Native Americans who officially lost their independence when the USA government claimed their power over the Natives and denigrated their culture and beliefs might look on this day a bit differently. I include the picture on the left of a plaque in Arizona or New Mexico taken on one of my trips there. It describes an explorer’s nondiscrimatory impressions and observations of the natives.