As a person whose economic life was ruined 23 years ago at age 23, when I got a lupus diagnosis and lost my health insurance, I know I'm only alive thanks to government health care--and charity, which has so far kept me from dying of the poverty I have to stay in to GET the government health care.
John Garamendi has been seeking votes in California for well over 30 years. He first took a run for the Governor's mansion in 1982, and was set to do so again in 2010 until the seat in CA-10 opened up, and he was inspired to return to Washington, where he served in the Clinton Administration in the Department of the Interior. He has the most diverse record of anybody in the race, with stints at the federal level, the state legislature, and in two statewide offices, as the Insurance Commissioner and now Lieutenant Governor. In our interview, we discussed health care, lessons learned from regulating insurance, No Child Left Behind, saving the NUMMI plant in Fremont (more on that from Garamendi here), and foreign policy in Iran. I found Garamendi to come at issues in a very comprehensive and thoughtful way, and you can see this for yourself below. A paraphrased transcript follows. (flip it)
Nothing better symbolizes the corruption of the debate about healthcare reform than the rhetoric about "government-run" healthcare. Or, for that matter, the related argument that we need a "uniquely American" solution which precludes a public system like Medicare for all.
Two reports that notably received scant coverage from either the media or even those advocating the public plan "option" in Congress, reveal the seldom told truth.
Medicare is a "uniquely American" solution, and it works.
Before you start celebrating the pending passage of a healthcare bill in Congress, you might want to make sure you have enough savings to offset the huge out of pocket costs coming your way.
I don't know if you've been thinking about it, but the costs of long-term care have been on the mind of some friends of mine lately.
For reasons that we won't go into here, they are in the process of pricing long-term care at care facilities...and yesterday afternoon, we had a chance to have a look at the "menu" of services (the facility's term) that can be purchased at this particular location.
If you are facing this issue in your own family, if you are a taxpayer thinking about how we plan to fund long-term care in the future...or if, one day, you expect to be old yourself...this conversation will surely matter.
Fresh of one of the most family-oriented holidays of the year, I'm sure all of you will know exactly what I'm talking about with the following scene:
Half a dozen extended family members crowded in a small living room trying to accomplish a task nobody really knows how to do. At least twice as many proposals as people. And somehow everybody gets to thinking that if they just repeat their idea often enough, at loud enough volume, it will become the best idea. Total chaos. "Too many cooks," as they say.
Except we're not arguing about how to tell if the turkey is done, or what the best route to the movie theater is. We're arguing about how you're supposed to put an I.V. into somebody's arm.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's health care plan claims to be a takeoff of th Massachusetts plan. That plan requires every citizen to purchase health insurance. As I've written in the past, the individual mandate is not really a solution. It leaves the "insured" open to huge deductibles, and/or large premiums. Why can't we find good, affordable health insurance?
Why? Becuase health insurance sucks! It is a source of loss in the health care delivery system. Insurance companies are skimming ridiculous amounts of money off the top of our health care system. And Dr. Marcia Angell, a Harvard med school teacher and former editor of the New England Medical Journal, thinks there is a better system available now:
Private insurance companies offer little of value, yet skim off 15 to 25 percent of the health care dollar for profits and overhead. It would make much more sense to extend Medicare to everyone. That could be done gradually by dropping the eligibility age a decade at a time, while phasing out the insurance companies. The loss of insurance jobs would probably be more than offset by job gains in other industries no longer saddled with health costs.
Medicare is not perfect, but its problems are readily fixed. It is far more efficient than private insurance, with overhead of less than 4 percent, and since it is administered by a single public agency, controlling costs would be possible. Unlike private insurers, it cannot select whom to cover or deny care to those who need it most.(Boston Globe 1/29/07)
Governmental programs? Oh my golly golly gosh, it would send the conservatives into a tizzy. What is this? Yup, we have a single payer system for everybody over the age of 65. Why not for younger people?
It has taken me a week to be able to write this diary. First I was in tears, then I was angry, then I was frustrated, and now I am just a total mix of all those emotions, but more then anything the overwhelming sense of disgust at the GOP envelopes all of my being.
Many of you already know that my Mother was very ill at the start of this year, she was in and out of the hospital and there was a point that the Doctors thought she wasn't going to pull through. During her illness she lived with us, thankfully she recovered and is now in better health then she has been for years (of course my household is still recovering from her 5 month stay with us : )
With Democrats only enjoying a one seat majority in the U.S. senate, a single Democratic defection would allow Vice President Dick Cheney to cast a tie-breaking vote. For Republicans, the number one target to undermine Harry Reid's leadership is Senator Max Baucus (D-MT). Even the conservative New Republic wrote, "What Baucus does is use his influence as the top Democrat on the Finance Committee to systematically undercut his party and enable George W. Bush's most egregious domestic legislation."
Yesterday's Washington Post has a story, Democrats to Push Pocketbook Issues where Sen. Baucus hinted at siding with big corporations to undermine incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).
Many in the party want to change Medicare's new drug benefit so the government can negotiate prices directly with pharmaceutical companies. Incoming Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) remains unsure. "We need to be very honest in getting the facts" about whether such a switch would be helpful, he said.
Would lowering prescription drug prices be helpful? For you and I, yes. But Max Baucus is wondering whether triangulating against Democrats will help his re-election campaign.
