I knew we were lost, when ONE word changed.

[SoCalDem]

"care", changed into "insurance."

All during the campaign last year, the debate was always framed on health CARE reform, and we all hip-hip-hoorayed, and said "FINALLY!!!"

and then it just "went away", and suddenly the wording was health-care INSURANCE reform.

It was actually a head-turning moment the first time I heard it. I don't recall exactly when, or by whom it was first said, but I knew we were doomed when I heard it.

I listened intently afterward, to see if it was just a slip of the tongue..but it was not..

Reforming an entity that has NO intention of BEING reformed, will not work.. Our prison system should have shown us that, and the prisoners are working from a weakened position..locked up, beaten down, impoverished, and all but thrown away, and yet most of them refuse to "reform".

Anyone who thinks that insurance companies have ANY desire or capability to reform, may be interested in a tropical island I have for sale...just offshore of Newfoundland.

Insurance companies have all the control, and they are in no mood for "reform", and every legislator who goes to them hat-in-hand, asking for money every chance they get, knows there will be no reform.. just a little love-bite here and there, in public, but slobbery kisses behind closed doors, and open loopholes..

[Captain Hilts]

1. But it IS insurance reform, how you get actual care would not change. nt

[enlightenment]

3. Well, you're absolutely right there, Captain Hilts.

We can't get decent health care now - and that's not going to change.

[jtrockville]

6. That's the problem. Right now, insurance companies dictate care.

I'd prefer a doctor of my choosing (not some insurance company's choosing) determine the actual health care I get.

[Captain Hilts]

9. Yep. That's got to change. Getting rid of ins. cos. anti-trust exemption is KEY.

I got treatment just fine without an insurance company through the military and Ontario government.

[jtrockville]

14. More than just anti-trust exemption. Get rid of INSURANCE COMPANIES.

[Captain Hilts]

24. The Prez said they play an important role. I'm not sure what that role is other than

skimming a third of the costs for themselves.h

[jtrockville]

33. They're nothing more than a MIDDLE MAN. A hugely profitable one.

[bvar22]

57. Their "product" is invisible.

They manufacture NOTHING, and produce NO wealth.
They are total parasites, a complete DRAIN on the system.

[varelse]

58. Their product is the deaths of hundreds of innocent people

their other products are fraud, corruption, and lies. Oh, and obscene amounts of campaign donations and cushy jobs for their political prosti... allies.

[bvar22]

60. Obama & The Democrat's "Uniquely American Solution" :

Give them more money....LOTS more money.

[SoCalDem]

69. Upside-down generosity..bah-humbug

The housing crisis could have been averted by bailing out from the bottom up.. the banks would have still gotten the money, but the home-buyers would have also gotten a break....and if property got an infusion of realistic re-evaluation, MORE people might have been able to buy houses.. not just the already-rich vultures with cash in their pockets..

a house next door to my friend, sold for $98500.00 and two days later it was back on the market for 145,000.00.. The people living there could have easily stayed in it, had the bank adjusted their loan..they bought in '05 when it cost them 297,000.00, but the wife lodt her job.. They could have afforded payments on the 98500..

[change_notfinetuning]

61. Thought you were talking about Wall St. for a second. Wall St. does produce

wealth, however, albeit phantom wealth. Americans seem to get it about Wall St. Why don't they see the insurance companies for the valueless parasites that they are?

[SoCalDem]

68. It's like a bank giving you $70 for that $100 check you cash

People would call the cops if that started to happen at every bank, but it's what happens to our premium payments ..

[pleah]

59. Abso-fucking-lutely!

I have said that more than once. Insurance companies should be illegal.

[Hepburn]

16. I have said this over and over to people who are against govt running health care:

Who do you prefer making the ultimate decisions about what you can or cannot have for your healthcare dollar: A for profit ins co...or the federal govt? Those are the choices we have. I, too, would prefer that the ONLY persons involved are the patient and the health care provider. However...that can ONLY take place when the patient is 100% self-paying and that most likely is not an option for 99% of the population.

:hi:

[superduperfarleft]

18. So you prefer nationalized health care to a Canadian-style single-payer system? n/t

[Hepburn]

55. That is not the point....

...the point is and was that when people bitch about the govt running healtcare, they fail to realize that it is now run by the ins co's who keep their premium money and deny coverage.

[Captain Hilts]

23. It's a real no-shitter, isn't it? Or, rather, it should be. nt

[jtrockville]

38. Doctors in developed countries don't seem to have such constraints.

From what I remember of Sick Around the World, doctors like their systems because they can practice medicine without worries about who pays what.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/

I wish my doctor could do this.

[tonysam]

40. Exactly. Playing semantic games doesn't change the fact

it isn't the care that is the issue but is the way health care is paid for, which of course contributes to access.

[tonysam]

41. Exactly. Playing semantic games doesn't change the fact

it isn't the care that is the issue but is the way health care is paid for, which of course contributes to access.

[BurtWorm]

43. They changed the semantics and the facts at the same time.

Once they were talking about real, radical insurance reform that would mean at least some added public financing for insurance for people still working. Now that is completely off the table, and all they're talking about is what the insurance industry thinks it needs to lower its costs so its profits will be as masssive as they want them to be.

[Orsino]

56. Yes. They're trying to pretend it isn't about our lives.

When deaths became casualties, and casualties became collateral damage, the terrible consequences were being hidden. Now we are guaranteed tedious bickering over points of insurance jargon, sterilized for TV that no one will care to watch.

Just the way they like it.

[Deja Q]

53. +1

[KarenS]

2. I hear what you're saying, mine heart fell when that word changed. n/t

[superduperfarleft]

4. Oh jesus christ....

It was ALWAYS insurance reform. The reason it was called healthCARE reform is because most people are too ignorant to know the difference.

Single-payer is insurance. Public option is insurance. Medicare is insurance. Social Security is insurance. INSURANCE is not a bad word, the problem with how insurance is provided.

[Fumesucker]

7. So you admit the reason it was called "health CARE reform" in the beginning was to gull the gullible

Thanks for admitting it.

[superduperfarleft]

10. It was called health care reform by the same people,

like Howard Dean, that incorrectly called the public option "single-payer."

[Captain Hilts]

11. BINGO. nt

[BurtWorm]

13. No, I think SoCalDem's point is absolutely valid.

Health care reform implies reform to the whole system, to the way it's delivered and paid for--to how all the cogs in the wheels work together. Within that context, single-payer and any formulation of a public option were in the picture at least as far as debate was concerned.

Health care insurance reform makes it specifically about the private industry that now and for the foreseeable future, evidently, will hold the bag on health care financing. This language strongly indicates that the game has permanently changed and won't change back.

Change we can believe in. :eyes:

[superduperfarleft]

15. Nationalizing hospitals, like is done in the UK, would be CARE reform.

Instituting single-payer similar to Canada's system, would be INSURANCE reform.

Look, this may seem minor, but the ignorance that allows us to not know the difference between CARE and INSURANCE reform is the same sort of ignorance that allows the teabaggers to scream about death panels and "government-run healthcare," which is even less likely to ever happen than single-payer.

[BurtWorm]

25. It doesn't matter what the niggling little literal meaning of the words is.

We know what the differences are. We're not idiots, for christ's sake!

But politicians' words signal something. When they were talking "health care reform," we could have the audacity to hope they were looking out for our interests--the people's interests. When they suddenly start using the words "insurance reform," they're up to something, and we *know* what they're up to. They're now on the insurance industry's page, looking out for the industry's interests.

[superduperfarleft]

27. You may have a point there, and you're not an idiot.

The person who is an idiot, though, for instance, was a now-tombstoned lunatic who posted low-information OPs like this one and called me a freeper when I advocated insurance reform to institute single-payer similar to Canada's system. Clearly, the difference between the two words is important to some people.

So do you not correct teabaggers screaming about "government-run healthcare" because it's just a niggling little literal meaning?

[SoCalDem]

31. "...tombstoned lunatic who posted low-information OPs like this one ..." gee thanks

Opened your Xmas present early, eh? the one with the broad-brushes..pre-loaded with paint?..color? personal-attack-puce, of course.

:rofl:

have a nice day anyway... life's too short to be mad at everyone:)

[superduperfarleft]

48. I meant to direct "low-information" towards you, not the lunatic part.

I apologize if I came off as personally attacking you. That wasn't my intention.

[SoCalDem]

49. left-handed "apology" , semi-accepted

[BurtWorm]

32. I hear what you're saying, and you obviously have a point.

And you're right, a real reform of the way American health care is paid for--i.e., insurance--is what this has been about the whole time. Which is why, of course, the left is enraged over this sell-out by Obama and the Democrats. But in an American context, as you well know, "insurance" means a private, for-profit industry charged with paying our health care bills.

What we're ultimately talking about is financing. Insurance implies risk bearing, but we needed--desperately--to put emphasis more on getting the money into the system to lower costs, no matter where it came from, which implied that the public would have to bear more of the risk burden. Now that's off the table. We're back to tweaking with the fucking industry as it dictates.

[superduperfarleft]

50. Don't get me wrong, I think care reform is needed as well.

I'd like to see a ban on pharmaceutical advertising, a move towards digitizing medical records, an emphasis on encouraging preventive care and healthier lifestyles (which the new High Deductible Health Plans/HSAs definitely does NOT do, if anything they encourage people to forgo care), and some sort of financial incentive for doctors to become general practitioners as opposed to specializing. I think a lot of administrative costs for providers could be reduced if we had a single-payer system, since there's only one place to submit claims to. I read somewhere that the number of administrators hospitals employ vastly outnumbers actual doctors, which is ridiculous but evidently it's necessary, unfortunately.

I think you've explained the OPs original point better than he/she did.

[Lorien]

64. You know not of whom you speak. nt

[maglatinavi]

29. change

Ha!!! Is that a Joke??? Has Obama been pulling our collective legs all the time??? Give me a break!!!
:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: Kick all their arses!!!

[DefenseLawyer]

22. You are both right.

Yes any health care reform is in a general sense an insurance reform (although I don't believe a person's health is really something that can be "insured"). However, the change in terminology by the politicians from health care reform to insurance reform wasn't by accident. It coincided with the shift from talking about a serious, major overhaul to actually crafting the insurance industry stimulus bill we have now.

[TwilightGardener]

45. It's all insurance, just a matter of who funds it. You are right. We were

NEVER going to have what people here fantasized about, which was us just walking in to a doctor's office or hospital for free.

[ixion]

5. yes, and it's "reform" along the lines of the so-called "Consumer Protection Act"

which was written by the banks to screw the consumer.

This is the same type of legislation for health insurance, except it's worse.

At least the CPA didn't mandate that everyone get a credit card, and use it. That is, in essence, what this bill is doing. :argh:

[BzaDem]

8. Did you read any of Obama's proposals?

Most people roughly equate care to insurance. The view that having private insurance doesn't help you at all to get healthcare is not shared by most people (that view is VERY overrepresented on the board). That is not to say that health insurance companies aren't despicable and shouldn't be heavily regulated (and forced to compete with a public option). It is just to say that most people (again, notwithstanding the large number of posts saying otherwise on this board) think of health insurance as something of a help to get health care (vs. no insurance at all).

That is the reason why what is really health insurance reform was called healthcare reform by Obama's campaign (in addition to that being the traditional term for these kinds of reforms). But if you read any of Obama's proposals, the plan that will pass now is very similar to Obama's plan (with the exception of the absence of the public option, which didn't have enough votes).

In fact, Obama actually had TV ads that campaigned AGAINST single payer as being too extreme.

[SoCalDem]

20. Personally, I have fantastic coverage through a union plan

but at times in our lives, we have had NONE, or BAD coverage.. We have suffered though exorbitant COBRA plans, and had policies with $5K per person deductibles.. We've run the gamut.

The health care reform I hoped for (and probably many others did as well), was a plan that regulated coverage, stripped down the 30% off the top profits, and based coverage on ability to pay.

If you went to the bank to cash a $100 check, and the bank gave you $70.00, you'd probably pitch a royal fit, but that's basically what insurance companies do now.

I accept the fact that my own family will probably be paying taxes on our "cadillac" plan...but I sure wish that extra we'll be paying, would be going to provide actual care for poor people..not just going into the pockets of insurance companies.

Imagine all the money given to insurance companies every month..now imagine that amount being paid for actual care...

[superduperfarleft]

21. What you're talking about is insurance reform. n/t

[maglatinavi]

35. O proposals

What, Obama had TV ads against single payer??? Never so them. If so, he is a treacherous being... I cannot get over this!!! The saddest part is that he failed Teddy... If Hillary had been the potus the story would be different... Why don't we all write O and remind him that he promised change, not this frigging shit!!!

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: kick their arses from here to high heaven!!!

[Hepburn]

12. This is NOT the change I voted for....

....:mad:

[daleanime]

17. Damn straight....

my stomach dropped the first time I heard it:hurts:

[Vinca]

19. You're exactly right. Big difference between "care" and "insurance."

[GreenEyedLefty]

26. I knew which word you meant before I opened the thread.

And I wholeheartedly agree. I don't know who started it, but I heard the president refer to "health insurance reform."

[AndyA]

28. Until the system is changed, nothing will really change.

We need 100% publicly financed campaigns.

Lobbyists for all but non-profit, special interest groups need to be banned. No more corporate lobbyists, no more lobbyists representing for profit industries.

Until we address this, nothing will truly change because those with the money always win, and that's not what the founders had in mind. Not at all.

[branders seine]

30. I guess Obama the progressive-sounding candidate

overnight becoming Obama the shill of banks, military contractors and insurance companies was the "change" he was talking about. :shrug:

[pissedoff01]

34. Real Title is 'Insurance Industry Profit Enhancement and Protection Act of 2009'

[SoCalDem]

36. a la "Clear Skies" & "Healthy Forests"

same ole same ole

[Octafish]

37. And THAT kicks in immediately.

PS: A hearty welcome to DU, pissedoff01!

[pissedoff01]

39. Thanks!

[grahamhgreen]

66. similar to the commodities and futures modernization act that brought us credit default swaps

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SoCalDem]

44. Merry Christmas to you too:)

I guess I'll have to run my thoughts past you before I ever post anything again:)

next time, order the piss-less Cheerios:)

[Octafish]

46. That one word moved the entire focus of the debate from universal coverage.

...under a single-payer system. And that meant an existential threat to Wall Street.

To make sure they would stay in business, the insurance companies bet the house on the House ... and the Senate ... and the White House. Without Ted Kennedy and Paul Wellstone to stand up to them, Big Money -- which, until OPEC, meant the insurance companies -- managed the discussion.

There is great power in one mere word. In regards to health care, it can mean the difference between life and death.

Thank you for remembering, SoCalDem.

[SoCalDem]

47. Young people would be wise to evaluate their job options

outside the US..especially if they plan to have families.

We older folks are not very welcome elsewhere, except as tourists, but civilized countries seem to offer their people a lot more than we do.

[Octafish]

51. Some societies value their elders for their wisdom and love.

I'm 52, my Friend. It seems like I've reached the point in time where I'm considered more of a liability than an asset, as shown by this welfare for health insurers bill.

Back when I was a reporter, I met a woman who had sought out Dr. Kevorkian. She owned a taxicab company in Michigan and was financially OK. The thing was, she had ALS and was getting to the point where it was hard for her to do the things she needed to do, unassisted.

The lady had been on Donahue with Kevorkian, IIRC. Anyway, she told me her family would come by at Christmas. Her grandson would come by when he needed money. Other than that, she was alone. So, a few months later, she opted out via Kevorkian. Damn near broke my heart.

The current health care debate shows how low we have fallen as a society, where people today are considered resources. So, We the People are like any other commodity that is used and discarded.

That's un-American and un-enlightened. I was raised to value every single person as an infinite treasurehouse of love and wisdom and good, for many truly are.

[SoCalDem]

52. It's ironic, isn't it?

I can remember, as a kid, wanting to be older.. the 5 yr old loudly proclaims, I'm 5 and a HALF",11 wants desperately to be 12, 12 longs to be a teenager.. the young teen itches to be16, so they can drive, the older-teen can't wait to be "legal"..and then we all seem to want to freeze time.. It becomes our enemy..to be held off as long as possible..

and now as I am approaching 61, I find myself longing to be 62, so I can draw my measly SS check, and then longing even more to be 65, to be medicare-worthy:(

When I was young, I never thought I would be WANTING to be 65 :rofl:

[Gregorian]

54. It's exactly how it works. Brilliant find.

I watched a documentary on indigenous people fighting for their lands at the UN.

The fight was over "people" versus "peoples". The letter S made an entire world of difference, almost literally.

[Triana]

62. Yep - that's about the time I figured it had all gone South

I didn't want to totally believe it yet but that was SO disgusting to me to hear that. Then, it went downhill further from there.

I've given up on ever having any REAL health CARE in this country. Not. Gonna. Happen.

[SoCalDem]

67. once most of the Boomers have croaked, there will probably be another chance

and by then we will be a majority "minority" nation, so perhaps these "new" people will shake things up like we have been unable to do :)

too late for many of us, but maybe not too late for our kids & grandkids

[undeterred]

63. We don't need no stinkin' insurance.

[grahamhgreen]

65. Americans need health care, not health insurance.