My Cure for Health Reform Fears...

and more funny stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0

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Let's Do Health Care Reform in Several Steps:

8/27/2009

My opinion:

I think most Americans have no idea what health systems are like in any other country because they've never been outside the US. People in Europe can travel to their neighbors so much more easily and see different cultures. I'm guilty of this--I've never left the U.S. either.

Fear of the unknown is understandable, but the health care reform debate should be based on truth, not lies. Unfortunately, I think the democrats are trying to reform the entire system at once. People are scared when the see a 1000 page law. I think congress should fix the worst problems first. Like congress should ban insurers from dropping people for pre-existing conditions and limit rate hikes for everyone to the rate of inflation. Even if we don't do the reforms that will cost tax money, we can change regulations and those changes can themselves fix a lot of the inequity.

It reminds me of how California's legislature cut back on strip mining abuses 6 years ago. Even though the federal government has this antiquated law that gives away federal land to mining companies, and congress can never get the votes to change it, our state legislature changed the local laws to require every mine to restore the landscape to what it looked like before the mining project. That raised the costs so high that several federal mine giveaways in the desert were dropped by the companies because they knew they couldn't make money doing it.
(I also write an enviro blog at http://rare-earth-news.blogspot.com . )

This is the way we could accomplish the same goals of a government plan by making the health insurers follow rules that curb their profits so much that they will be the ones seeking a federal bailout. And with a bailout comes government control, like at GM and Chrysler. If reform was done in stages, we could do this.

Most Americans hate the insurance companies--let's target their abuses right now.

We don't have to fix the entire system at once. We can knock down the power of the insurers now and later force them to be part of the fix of the entire system.

---Rex Frankel, for StopCorporateGreed.org

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http://humboldtherald.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/thompson-town-hall-packed/

“This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the national aeronautics and space administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US department of agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the food and drug administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the national institute of standards and technology and the US naval observatory, I get into my national highway traffic safety administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the environmental protection agency, using legal tender issed by the federal reserve bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US postal service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the department of labor and the occupational safety and health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the defense advanced research projects administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.”