No swine flu shots for 47 million Americans puts everyone at risk

If ever there was a reason for universal health care and a public option,  it is the potential in this country for a swine flu epidemic.

Today my local newspaper, The Citizen, published an announcement that the one and only health clinic in this area will be offering flu shots for $50. The announcement included the alarming “reassurance” that “many insurance plans will cover a flu shot.”

Guess what? There are some 47 million people in this country who do not have health insurance, so flu shots will not be covered. And if they become seriously ill, their medical care will also not be covered.

Here’s what those turncoat Democrats and the entire clan of GOP Dittoheads fail to grasp: they are in danger of “dying quickly” themselves if the uninsured do not get swine flu shots. Eventually, the epidemic will reach even the gated communities where those legislators and their families live.

Some might call that poetic justice. I call it stupid.

Should Iowa, Wyoming determine health care policy for 300 million Americans?

Mike Enzi, Republican Senator from Wyoming, Pop 510,000 (2005)

Charles Grassley, Republican Senator from Iowa, Pop 3 million (2008)

It sounds as if the Obama Administration is finally coming to its senses and is ready to dump the anti-reform tag-team of Grassley and Enzi in favor of health care policies that actually help 300 million Americans, especially the 47+ million uninsured.

After so many years of listening to all the reasons why my home state of New Hampshire and that corn-field known as Iowa should not have the first primary and caucuses for president, it is astonishing that two Republican senators from states with a total population of about 3.5 million should be allowed to have such a major impact on health care policy for the rest of the country.

How David Axelrod and Company could have missed the major lesson of the Clinton reform effort is equally astonishing. It was not that Hillary held “secret meetings,” or that the reform plan was too complicated, or that it was “socialistic,” or that she did not include enough politicians in her deliberations (she did). It failed because the Republicans wanted it to fail. And they wanted it to fail because they do not believe that the poor deserve health care. In other words, like most Republicans, they were greedy and did not want to pay for someone else’s health insurance.

They still don’t. Nothing has changed folks. The GOP is still the party of the rich, the entitled, the haves. And they will do everything they can to keep their stash as safe as possible, the rest of the country be damned.

Grassley and Enzi?

Let ‘em go home and shuck corn and shovel cow shit. That’s where they belong.

Big surprise: wealthy conservatives behind attacks on health care reform.

A recent story by Real News Network identified the major players and the money behind the attacks on health care reform.

Along with a significant investment in media advertising, several of these groups have also been stoking the anti-reform anger boiling over at town hall meetings.

Who are wearing the black hats in this political melodrama? According to Real News Network –

Conservatives for Patients’ Rights is led by health care entrepreneur Rick Scott, the co-founder of Solantic urgent care walk-in centers, which he’s spread across Florida and is looking to expand. While 80 percent of its patients have at least some insurance, Solantic also bills itself as an alternative to emergency-room care and a resource for patients with no insurance.

FreedomWorks, which has been advocating against the overhaul but has not launched TV ads, is chaired by Dick Armey, the former Republican majority leader of the House of Representatives from Texas.

Patients First and Patients United are creations of a larger group called Americans for Prosperity. AFP’s Web site describes a grassroots organization with more than 700,000 members that advocates “for public policies that champion the principles of entrepreneurship and fiscal and regulatory restraint. It was started by billionaire David Koch, of the Koch Industries oil family, one of the country’s top donors to conservative, free-market causes. The foundation’s board includes Art Pope, a former North Carolina legislator also involved in conservative causes, whose family owns hundreds of discount stores.

Two other grassroots groups have financed ads targeting peoples’ fears that more government involvement would hurt seniors and hasten end-of-life decisions.

One of them, Club for Growth, which advocates lower taxes, is led by president Chris Chocola, a former Republican congressman from Indiana who lost his re-election bid in 2006. Club for Growth this week announced a $1.2 million ad campaign against a health care overhaul, to run in North Dakota, Colorado, Arkansas and Nevada.

The other, 60 Plus Association, is a conservative senior advocacy group that wants to abolish the estate tax. Singer Pat Boone is the group’s national spokesman. Chairman Jim Martin started the group in 1992 with fund-raising help from conservative direct mail guru Richard Viguerie. It spent $1.5 million on TV ads opposing a healthcare overhaul in the last week.

Anti-reform logic: The poor don’t deserve health care.

Back during the first Clinton Administration, the main assassins of health care reform were Bob Dole and Phil Gramm. They did the dirty work of the special interests. The only thing that has changed since 1993-1994 is that more Americans are uninsured and the health care system is even more dysfunctional.

What hasn’t changed is the ideology that says that Americans without health care must fend for themselves, that the taxes of “well-off” Americans should not be used to pay for health care for the poor (i.e. it’s their fault that they are poor and should suffer the consequences), and that in a theoretical free-market economy the health care providers — doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, etc. — should be free to maximize their profits regardless of the consequences.

The graph below shows who exactly has and who doesn’t have health insurance. According to a Gallop poll taken in June, almost 42% of Hispanics, 20% of blacks, and 29% of those earning less than $36,000 annually are without health insurance.  These are the “Have Nots” in this debate.  The total group without health insurance, according to the poll, includes some 47 million Americans.

Predictably, of those earning more than $90,000 a year, only 4.5% are without insurance. This is the constituency of the GOP and the conservative Blue Dogs who are trying to deny the poor a public option.

It’s easy to imagine how the smug, wealthy conservatives out there can be so callous about denying health care to the poor. Unfortunately, they are the ones with the clout. They are the ones that our politicians are listening to.

We have to make sure they hear our voices, too.