Not long ago, we were told that the Obama administration was aiming for a public option that could provide coverage to one out of every four Americans. Now the figure is around one out of every fifty.

Not long ago, the idea was that taxpayer-funded subsidies were to be used only for the public option. But now the entire concept has been hijacked by and for the private insurance industry. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it on October 8, private insurance companies “are going to get 50 million new consumers, many of them subsidized by the taxpayers.”

Pelosi was making the argument that the least the insurance industry could do, in return, would be to accept a higher level of taxation. But her comment was a telling acknowledgment that all the “public option” proposals now provide a massive funnel from the U.S. Treasury to the insurance conglomerates. The individual mandate is a monumental giveaway to private insurance firms.

The specter of “healthcare reform” that requires individuals to stretch their personal finances for often-abysmal insurance coverage is the worst of all worlds — government intrusion for corporate benefit without any guarantees of decent health coverage.

In effect, the individual-mandate requirement tells people that obtaining health coverage is ultimately their own responsibility — and the quality of the coverage is beside the point. In essence, when it comes to guaranteeing quality healthcare for all, the gist of the policy is: “Let’s not, and say we did.”

The predictable result is reinforcement of vast — and often deadly — inequities in access to healthcare.

Norman Solomon | CommonDreams.org

This season of flu pandemic has taken the always heated vaccine argument and intensified it several-fold. Any online article for or against vaccination typically engenders dozens if not hundreds of comments. I’ve engaged in many such conversations — taking the anti-vax position — and have come to conclude that arguing with proponents of vaccination (and the whole “better living through pharmaceuticals” crowd) is like arguing with religious fundamentalists.

Their chief point is that mainstream American medicine is “science-based,” while the anti-vaxers are a rabble of anti-scientific fools, hysterical housewives, and idiot celebrities seeking publicity. They thrust all dissenters into the same camp as global warming deniers and anti-evolution creationists. The science is in, they say, the evidence indisputable, and anyone who disagrees or merely questions should be rounded up and shot full of the latest miracle medicine before they spread their vile condition to others.

No disagreement permitted. No thinking required, except by certified authorities, and no dissension among them from the One True Medicine. Those who express doubts are social pariahs guilty of the most horrible sins.

Why does H1N1 call for a Presidential designation as a national emergency while the preventable deaths of 45,000 Americans every year (122 every day) is not?

Swine flu leads the news. You can die from swine flu, or should we say H1N1, even if you have no underlying health conditions. Young people have died, and pregnant women are at risk. People are lining up to be vaccinated. Health professionals are at risk due to poor preparations at some health facilities. As many as 1,000 deaths have occurred due to this flu outbreak. It’s scary out there.

But the swine flu is no match for the killing going on at the hands of the for-profit healthcare system in these United States. We bury kids, pregnant moms, babies, teens, young fathers, mid-lifers and older folks too without even batting an eye in the chambers of power in this nation.

Donna Smith | CommonDreams.org

The Harvard Medical School researchers found that an uninsured person’s risk of death is 40 percent higher than his or her privately insured counterpart. Looked at another way, every 12 minutes a person dies unnecessarily because he or she doesn’t have health coverage. –Dr. Deb Richter

We’re losing more Americans every day because of inaction … than drunk driving and homicide combined. –Dr. David Himmelstein

Forty-five thousand Americans die every year due to their inability to pay for decent, timely medical care.

America took a one-time murder of 3,000 citizens to justify an eventual expenditure of trillions, coupled with two wars and the ensuing deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. You might think we would show a sense of urgency, if not high moral outrage, at the fact that the same number die every month, and millions more experience severe financial distress, simply because we refuse to adopt a rational and compassionate healthcare delivery system.

Though the politicians drone on about how difficult the problem is, in fact there are plenty of examples of working systems in the world, including (since we are constitutionally incapable of learning from other nations) two in America — medicare and the VA.

The key to all such systems? Healthcare is viewed as a primary human need and therefore every citizen’s right. Everyone involved in the delivery of that right is fairly compensated for their work, but nobody rakes in unearned profits, and no payments at all go to those who do not in some way contribute to patient care.

Karen Ignagni, spokesperson for the health insurance industry, was on the News Hour last night defending the industry’s complaints about the emerging healthcare reforms. While they had been happy with the prospect of forcing everyone in America to buy into their plans, they are alarmed now that the reforms will cut into their god-given profits. So, she warned, we will just have to raise everyone’s premiums.

Message to America, Obama, and the handful of congressfolk who don’t have their ears stuffed up with industry bribes: despite the fact that they do nothing to improve the health of Americans, the insurance industry insists on grabbing 25% of every dollar spent on healthcare.

They are greedy, pure and simple, all eyes to their profits, with no concern for the health of the nation, nor compassion for suffering citizens.

We are exposed to astounding amounts of pollution. Over 80,000 chemicals have been introduced into our society since 1900, and only 550 have been tested for safety. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), about 2.5 billion pounds of toxic chemicals are released yearly by large industrial facilities. And 6 million pounds of mercury are poured into our air every year.

In fact, a recent government survey — “The National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals” issued in July 2005 — found an average of 148 chemicals in our bodies. And those were only the ones for which they tested . . . The Environmental Working Group examined the umbilical cord blood of children just as they emerged from the womb. They found 287 industrial chemicals, including pesticides, phthalates, dioxins, flame-retardants, Teflon, and toxic metals like mercury. — Dr Mark Hyman

Highschool chemistry 101: chemical A mixed with chemical B results in X; chemical B mixed with chemical C results in Y; and chemical C mixed with chemical A results in Z. Most chemicals are reactive — when mixed with one or more other chemicals they result in new substances with different properties.

Just before the Senate Finance Committee wrapped up for the long weekend, members debated one of Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) amendments, which would strike language defining which benefits employers are required to cover.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) argued that insurers must be required to cover basic maternity care. (In several states there are no such requirements.)

“I don’t need maternity care,” Kyl said. “So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”

Stabenow interrupted: “I think your mom probably did.”

This little slice of Senate life goes right to the heart of America’s healthcare crisis.

Does anyone honestly believe that this White House has acted in good faith? With its allies in Congress? With its constituents? Hell, with its own campaign promises?

Never in my long career as a professional cynic have I seen an spasm of Beltway bubblehood so far removed from the actual concerns of people’s lives–so far removed that, last weekend, we had a gathering of the politically halt, lame, blind, and crippled in Washington, gathered for the sole purpose of petitioning various oligarchs to keep screwing them with their pants on.

Never in my long career as a professional cynic have I seen a spasm of Beltway bubblehood so far beyond even the limits of Irish Smartass to describe it. The political class in this country–politician and journalist, lobbyist and legislator, Republican and Democratic, Executive and Legislative — has made a collective decision to protect the profits of one of the least popular industries in the history of the Republic, to preserve the iron grip of corporate bureaucrats over the practice of medicine in America, and to refuse vitrually without serious discussion to adopt measures favored by 77 percent of the voting public.

It is to be in awe, is what it is.

Charles Pierce | Altercation

Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has made the interview rounds recently talking about the H1N1 (swine) flu vaccine. On PBS’s News Hour, he stressed the importance of making the vaccine available soon since the H1N1 flu is already spreading. He ominously added that a recent outbreak at WSU had sickened 2000 students.

The doctor didn’t include any details of that outbreak but we can safely assume that if there had been any deaths or serious complications he would have told us. In fact, as the Seattle Times reports: “Most suffered only mild illnesses, but two non-students — an adult and a teen — were briefly hospitalized.”

According to Dr. Fauci, they plan to spend $2 billion on the H1N1 vaccine. They will be recommending it for college students since several of the deaths from the spring outbreak of H1N1 were from that demographic. Fauci implied that it was bad luck for the WSU students that the flu hit before the vaccine was ready.

But they didn’t need it! A group of 2000 contacted the flu and recovered easily and without complications. For far less money than we’re spending on a vaccine we could send a team of medical researchers to conduct interviews of the school population, looking into diet, lifestyle, stressors, environmental conditions, and responses to the flu outbreak to draw out any differences between those who never got sick, those who got sick and easily recovered, and those who developed more serious complications.

As the likelihood of genuine healthcare reform dwindles, laughter may be the only medicine we can afford:

From Billionaires for Wealthcare