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Yes, just imagine. A way to cut through all the clutter and chaff of the healthcare legislation. To focus the minds of the Congress and build a new healthcare system that serves the best interests of…the patients.
Not Big Pharma. Not the AMA. Not the medical venture capitalistic hedgefunderific pillagers. Not the hypersalaried and bonused health insurance companies. Not Mr. Lunkhead’s talking points.
The Patients.
Here’s how to get there.
First, the Senate and House and White House immediately suspend all their health care plans and go COBRA. And when they come up with the new health care plan, it’s not just our health care plan, it’s theirs, too.
Kinda like making Cornyn and Schumer fly coach, I suppose.
The President made a start at building public support today with the town hall in Green Bay Wisconsin [and if anybody wants to start smacking around the "S" word, watch out for those Packer fans. They may not take kindly to aspersions on their ownership of the team that made the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field a sports legend].
So the groundwork’s been laid. But Congress putting their own healthcare where their policies…and mouths…are. Now that’ll focus their attention.
Just imagine how quickly and how well they’d be inspired to move.
h/t CF via Mr. Sunshine
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crossposted at Prairie Sun Rising
9 Comments
That’s a really good point, because the NFL is built on a socialist philosophy
PS still waiting on Brett Favruh ;-) to announce he’s signing with the Norsemen
PPS check out this early history of St Luke’s
Yeah, the NFL is a socialist outfit.
But they changed their bylaws to forbid public ownership of their franchises. Green Bay is the one-and-only, lonely, publicly-owned NFL franchise. Why? The Green Bay Packers are not leaving Green Bay for any greener pasture. They can’t put pressure on the city of Green Bay or the State of Wisconsin to build whatever it might be that the NFL wants.
The NFL doesn’t like not being able to pressure governments for goodies. Of course, neither does Major League Baseball nor the National Basketball Association. Professional sports in this country is by-and-large a scam. How did George Walker Bush make his millions (the millions that allowed him to become Governor of Texas and the worst President in the history of the United States)? It wasn’t in oil, he was a failure in the oil business.
He was allowed to make an insider trade that funded his purchase of a minority share in the Texas Rangers. The not so awful President Bush was buddies with baseball Commissioner Peter Uerberoth. Somebody (Ueberoth?) leaned on the buyers of the Rangers to name W Bush the Managing Partner. Bush leaned on the city of Arlington, TX and forced them to grant the Rangers the right of eminent domain to build a new baseball stadium. Some of the property that the Arlington Sports Authority (owned and operated entirely by the Texas Rangers) wanted for the stadium belonged to the Mathes family (Curtis-Mathes TVs and furniture). They didn’t want to sell, and they sure didn’t want to sell at the price the Rangers were offering. So the Arlington Sports Authority condemned the property and paid less than their original unfair offer.
The Mathes family sued, and won. Who do you think was responsible for paying the judgement? The Rangers, right? It’s their stadium, they ran the quasi-governmental agency that built the thing, right? Wrong! The city of Arlington was on the hook for it, the Rangers had naught to do with it, don’t you know.
This is how professional sports franchises operate now.
For all the chest-thumping about “socialism” there’s a whole lot of examples where it does just fine in this country. North Dakota has a state owned bank which has a huge surplus, a state mill where excellent flour is produced. Universities and state colleges are another example of “socialism.”
Shame on those who made it a smear word.
And John, we still call it St. Luke’s from time to time hereabouts *g*.
i like it!
Imagine…great post Prairie Sunshine. Like your ideas
The key is to bar for-profit insurers from the primary-insurance market. Otherwise they’ll cherry-pick the healthiest customers with lower prices, driving insurers who cover the sick to ever higher prices. Eventually there’s no affordable insurance for those who need it most.:
Another issue needing transparency is the so-called “nonprofit” insurance companies, like the Blues in ND. They may have a legal document that says they’re nonprofit, but their mindset, their modus is pure bottom line pump up the bonuses enrich the executives mindset of their corp days.
Psssst, Kent, North Dakota voter here…I won’t be as dismissive of you as you seem to be of me.
That’s another good point about Blue Shield. Are the execs still going to Hawaii every year for their conferences?
Blue Shield is at the top of my my shit list, in all caps, bolded, underlined, and in red
Years ago when my nephew had brain cancer they wouldn’t treat him until my brother got Byron Dorgan involved. The excuse was something like the doctor wanted to give him “experimental” treatment which was completely false. They delayed long enough in order to keep their bottom-line that he didn’t make it
Fucking Assholes
PS I’ve got a message for Kent Conrad about his dismissive, sanctimonious, and arrogant comments, which I’ll put in a comment somewhere, or blog, or something.
And I can’t vote there but I know plenty of voters in Bismarck and Mandan and Glen Ullin and New Salem and Beulah and Hazen and Driscoll and Steele and Jamestown and Casselton and Grand Forks and Devils Lake and Fargo.
I know people and they know people
And if you haven’t read it yet, Kristof cuts through the b.s. scaremongering about Canadian health care. Well worth a read.