Nice web site you built for Ron Wyden. Wish I could say the same for the people who designed his health plan.

I have to say that I completely agree with Bill Bodden. The Wyden plan is a ridiculous crutch applied to the decomposing and putrescent corpus of America's insanely ill-constructed health services delivery system. Band aids are not what is called for here.

Imagine this thought exercise: We've been told that the nexus of today's financial chaos is the 10,000 or so real estate foreclosures occuring every week in the U.S. But why are so many Americans falling behind on their mortgage obligations? Fully half of all U.S. foreclosures have been attributed at least in part to a medical problem. Dare we suggest that a morally bankrupt health system is one of the prime root causes of our current financial catatstrophe? I'd certain suggest that the case can be made.

This week there was an announcement of a new open letter by the Physicians For A National Health Program (PNHP) to the Presidential candidates calling for the nation to enact single-payer health care. LINK

Look for the PNHP letter, signed by 5,000 health care professionals, in the current issues of The New Yorker and the Nation Magazine.

It's time to "just say no" to all the silly, half-measure bandaid solutions proposed by McCain, Obama, Wyden, Kitzhaber, etc.

It's time for America to grow up and face the reality that we can no longer afford to spend twice as much as a percentage of GDP on health care for profoundly worse outcomes for our citizenry than are extant in any other OECD nation. The profit system is betraying us. And the profit system will not fix itself. Its incentives are completely and diametrically opposed to providing the best health care to the public. Perversely, we now have a system that rewards itself by denying service to the insureds. This is nuts. No other OECD nation tolerates such stupid barbarism.

MacTavish repeats the canard the IT industry and the insurance industry is pushing with the help of some very technically unknowledgeable people. One just has to look at the problems, costs, and failings of our State and most states to implement and maintain accurate centralized electronic records to understand just why MacTavish's argument is incoherent, and why centralized electronic records will have virtually nothing to do with lowering health care costs.

Kari's perpetual shilling for Wyden's Republican plan is something else all together. Wyden and his plan intentionally trashes long-standing values of the Democratic Party. It is a total sell-out to the health insurance industry that would require we all do business with them. He would abolish all government insurance plans except Medicare. It's no coincidence, and Kari won't tell you because Kari has his own business interests to protect, that Wyden in fact is working Republicans to support his plan because those elected Democrats who are keeping faith with our longstanding values have rejected him and his plan.

This is also is something that Merkley and Kari have also been misleading about. Merkley has signed on to the Wyden plan, and in fact has NOT endorsed the Obama plan in all it's specifics, which for now includes the possibility of a public health insurance plan option (Obama himself has backed off on the specifics in the last 60 days, but nobody has pressed him on it.) Just read his website.

We are in the midst of a health care reform effort right here in Oregon. The Oregon Health Fund Board is getting ready to announce their proposals to the legislator. If you haven't heard much about it you can thank a lot of Democratic legislators and political insiders that people the proprietors of this website consider to be their faction of the DPO who don't want you to know just want they DON'T want to happen with health insurance reform in the 2009 session.

They do not want you to have the option of participating in a public health insurance plan rather than being forced to do business with the private health insurance industry. Wyden's plan as it has been written with the help of the industry would even by Federal law block the OHFB from offering you that option.

By the way, it's not too late to let the OHFB know you don't want to be forced to do business with the private health insurance industry, and instead want the option of participating in a public health coverage option under the system they will propose to the legislature. Read the draft report. You'll see the public plan option mentioned on p. 10 and p. 59-60. Tell the OHFB at:

503-373-1779 (voice) 503-378-5511 (fax) [email protected] (email)

Oregon Health Fund Board (snail mail) General Services Bldg 1225 Ferry St SE, 1st Floor Salem, OR 97301

that you don't want them to propose legislation that the legislature through the OHIE governing body take years to just "evaluate" a public plan as proposed on p.60, but instead that the legislature should direct the OHIE to create a public plan from the outset and let the market decide.

I should mention also that the public plan option being pushed by grassroots advocates and described in the OHFB report is intended to not be the end of the story. It is intended to provide people with cost-effective health care coverage now, and the option of seeing just how a public health coverage option might work so they have an informed opinion about whether they might want a so-called single payer plan instead of just hearing horror stories from right-wingers and Democrats like Wyden who are in the pocket of the industry.

In particular it is also intended to offer small businesses an alternative which they have a continuing voice in shaping, rather than being at the mercy of the industry like those of us individuals who are uninsured.

Imagine, if a 72-year-old cancer survivor had no worry about getting health care coverage.

Um... not to diminish your point or anything... but wouldn't a 72-year-old cancer survivor have been covered under Medicare for 7 years already? So it seems to me that Senator McCain's plan wouldn't benefit him mostly because he wouldn't need it in the first place.

This is a very complex issue, and there are no easy answers. I don't think McCain's plan is particularly helpful, but nor have I heard any other truly helpful plans either.

Kari, if insurance companies have to charge the same rates to everyone, it may drop the average cost down compared to the previously-covered pool, but the actual cost for those who were not previously participating will of course be enormously increased (you know, up from zero). Forced equal participation in the risk pool in order that healthy young low-income folks may subsidize old, wealthy, unhealthy folks... that's quite a progressive idea you've got hold of there.

Funny, sounds to me like you agree with John McCain -- health care is more of a "responsibility" than a "right". ;-)

Health Care... Right: that was an amazingly polished position piece for an off-the-cuff blogger's delight.

Whose campaign did you say cuts your paycheck?

Just askin'...

rw - have a little class. Or at least a little respect that others could have principles. It's become a common tell in American political life in 2008 that the first thing those of questionable character do is accuse others of self-perceived deficiencies in their own character.

I wonder if we may have learned something unflattering about you here: That maybe you would not care to spend the energy to become informed enough about the real-life intricacies of a consequential political issue, and then advocate for a principled position unless you were getting paid for it. Even when the issue is as vital to our economy and our way of life as health care is. Do you have any respect for anybody else that you even think they could care enough and spend the time to be informed enough about an issue to speak accurately, competently, and with principle about it when the situation presents itself?

Unfortunately for you, it is because the issue is health care, and the position that I'm advocating is for a public option so we are not forced to do business with private industry interests that shows just how dishonorable your snark is. The interests here with the money are the health insurance industry and the hospital industry. The people getting paid here by them are their political lackeys like Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley, and Kari Chisholm.

Just who do you fantasize would have the money to spend paying grassroots advocates like me to advocate 1) that health care is a right, and 2) for a public option against the interests who stand to make even more money if there is a legal mandate we must buy insurance, but no public option in which we all share the risk and responsibility in exchange for univeral access to health care? Because that's exactly what your not too-veiled insinuation that I would have to be a paid tool for some moneyed group who is interested in spending it in that way is --- an utter fantasy. As far as I know, there's not even any public interest advocacy group with paid staff on the supposed left in Oregon who unequivocally advocates not just one, but both of those positions.

There is an important piece to the health care puzzle that everyone seems to be missing, Redundant Medical Coverage. The typical worker is covered by three separate insurance policies providing coverage for medical treatment, more if he drives a company vehicle. They are his company health plan, workman’s compensation coverage, his personal automobile coverage and his employer’s vehicle insurance policy. In addition he may also be covered by his spouses employee health coverage and through his renter’s or home owner’s policies he provides medical coverage for people injured on his property just as his injuries may be covered by his neighbors. And there is all the third party liability coverage that is out there, all of which includes substantial medical coverage. Granted most of this coverage is extremely situational and often requires at least the threat of litigation to receive payment but it is there and it costs money. In the aggregate, a lot of money and all of it running through an insurance company that is taking its profit and administrative costs off the top and trying very hard not to pay out.

But if there was a Universal Medical Care Plan, where anyone sick or injured was just treated, without fault finding; all that Redundant Medical Coverage would be unnecessary. This would result in a substantial savings to the insurance companies providing that coverage, savings that should be passed on. And if a Universal Long Term Disability Program was created at the same time there should be even greater savings, particularly as the need of injured parties to resort to litigation would be greatly reduced.

The trick is how to make sure that the savings are either passed on to the policy holders so they could use it to pay part of their share of the Universal Health Care program or to have the insurance companies pick up a part of the cost of the Universal Health Care. Either way it could provide another source of money to pay for Universal Health Care. The big problem of course is political as this proposal as the potential of adding trial lawyers to the list of opponents to Universal Coverage.

Hi Kari,

Re: "I support single payer, too. But we've waited 50 years for that fantasy. I am no longer willing to wait for universal health care. Not a single more year."

Hmmm, you seem to be overlooking the obvious fact that every other industrialized (OECD) nation on the planet has some variant on single payer health care.

Sadly, it's only in Dumbf*ckistan that we are saddled with a completely immoral haphazard mess in lieu of a health care system.

Best regards, Ray

Kari (and MacTavish in his own way with his incoherent claim about centralized electronic records) is just putting out the well-honed, but long refuted talking points abouts "bi-partisan" support and 50 years of no progress.

The reality is that Wyden is working Republicans because he can't get support from a majority of Democrats who don't embrace the Republican philosophy that we should all be forced to do business with private health insurance companies. Those companies are facing hard times as they continue to raise their prices beyond what people can afford. They are looking for a government bailout, and this time it's not just a wad of cash, it's new laws like Wyden and Merkley advocates forcing all of us to do business with them forever. How's that for the mother of all bailouts?

And what Kari doesn't say about the last 50 years is how Democrats like Wyden, and now Merkley, in the pocket of the industry an who tend to be found around the DLC, DSCC, and DCCC, have worked with Republicans to block reform. We're not talking about Democrats like the 70+ in the House who are co-sponsoring HR-676 and like Feingold and Sanders in the Senate who keep up the fight for real Democratic values on behalf of working people.

Remember Wyden would in a single law abolish ALL of the other current public national and state health insurance programs except Medicare, as well as put disincentives in place for employers to provide health insurance for their employees (he's waffled on this), and require instead that we do business with private health insurance companies. What Kari is saying is that the kind of Democrats he supports have at best done little to bring about sensible health care reform and at worst blocked it, so what is it going to take to finally going to just give up and just give them their way?

Wyden even shares McCain's argument that employers would no longer provide health insurance to their employees and that we would be able to afford our own private health insurance because those employers who did provide health insurance would instead give all their employees a raise with the money they aren't spending on health insurance. Right. Is it clear yet why Wyden is courting the Republican side of the aisle and why only a certain faction of Democrats in the Congress are supporting his plan?

The fact is, in this election season we have seen the start of a progress along a new path as several candidates including Edwards, Clinton, and Obama put forth plans that include a public option (with long-term care as a component) for those who don't want to be at the mercy of the private health insurance industry. Or at the mercy of a government that would become even more of an advocate and agent for the industry than for us.

The political landscape has changed, and the debate is no longer just between choosing Kucinich's vision of a single-payer plan or total collapse into private health insurance. Kari's crocodile tears about what hasn't happened in 50 years has to be interpreted in the reality of that current changed situation and how Wyden, Merkley, and apparently Kari, don't support the Obama plan.

Doesn't Sen. Wyden's plan amount to a flat per capita tax?

Everyone is required to pay $300/month? for some service mandated by the governmet (or more likely about $450/month if you divide the total spent on healthcare to the total population)

Isn't that simply the apex of the antithesis of progressive.

Health care is not a right, it's a privilege. Just like having a full stomach of food isn't a right, it too is a privilege. We are about to see how many privileges we have and how well we had "it" and squandered "it".

You have the right to not be killed, to defend yourself if threatened, and to freely associate with people, to freely develop your mind as you see fit and to earn privileges as you see fit.

To call privileges "rights" isn't progressive, it's regressive and leads to societal collapse.

Call it the ultimate financial crisis. Despite what Obama thinks, you can't create a utopia on earth. Humans are infallible, imperfect, and a wrought with flaws.

<h2>Also, you can't change the laws of Physics either.</h2>