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The
Fundamental Questions:
We'd be
wise to begin by asking and answering two basic,
core-level questions:
1)
What structures, facilities, and services are so
valuable to a society that they should be
available to everyone.
2)
How do we pay for and provide these structures,
facilities, and services?
Collectively, we
presently provide streets, roads, highways,
bridges, water, power, sewer systems, schools,
libraries, police and fire protection services, harbors, airports, train stations,
parks, recreation facilities, and dozens of other
structures, facilities, and services. We pay for these assets by direct payment by the
users or out of the public treasury, or by a
combination of the two.
Anybody and
everybody gets to use them because having them
available is everybody's best
interest. Most of the benefits from
these structures, facilities, and services come to
us indirectly. For example, we do not
directly pay the teacher who taught the child to
read who grew up to design bolts that go in the
press that makes the wheels that are delivered by
another truck to an factory that males the
tractors, the plow the fields that grow the
tomatoes that make the sauce that goes on the
pasta that you eat when you go to
restaurant. As a result of
this highly integrated infrastructure, the United Sates has been and
still is, the envy of much of the rest of the
world.
Some things are so
valuable to the well being of everybody that we
simply must be sure that they are available to
everybody. But what about
health care? How valuable is universal heath
care? Health services are an
essential ingredient in any society.
Some how they must be paid for.
So the issue here is not really about health
care. It's about money. At
the moment, it's about producing higher profits by
depriving some people of health services.
But is that really in societies best
interest.
What are the benefits of having
health cares services available to everybody? What is the price for not having
not these services? Which offers the greater
benefits? Which is less
expensive? Which best enhances the
well-being and peace of mind of the people.
In addressing these questions, we can't talk
exclusively about money because there are several
other, non-monetary costs and benefits that must
be added to the matrix and considered in answering
this question:
"Is
Universal Health Care valuable enough to the
well-being of society to be worth partially or
completely paying for it our of public
funds?
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Editor's Note: These three Paragraphs
are the same as page one. They are duplicated here to be sure the
readers has a clear picture of the context of the paragraphs that follow.
Here's the context in which we'd be wise
look for the answer to th e above question:
Every
problem facing humanity, including paying for adequate health care for everyone,
must be examined, addressed,
and resolved within the context of providing the greatest, long-term good for the greatest number
of people at the
lowest possible costs.
The costs must
be measured in more ways than just money.
We also
need to minimize the number of lives lost, reduce grief and misery as much as
possible, maximize individual freedom, and consume the least amount of money, time, effort, and
resources.
Whatever
resolution/solution is implemented must actually solve or significantly reduce the
problem. It must be sustainable, and it must be environmentally sound.
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Where Are
We Now?
In this
picture, where do we place universal health care?
Presently, it's sort
of, kind of, partially on the table, and partially
not. We already have two health care
systems in the United States that are single
payer, one is Medicare and the other is the
Veterans Administration. In the VA,
everything, including the doctors, nurses,
hospitals, and medications are all completely paid
for by the government. In the Medicare
system, doctors, nurses, hospital treatments, and
medications are all provided by outside,
independent sources.
When one gets
beyond all the rhetoric, the dogma, and the
shouting matches and examine the evidence, it
becomes obvious that some form of single payer
health insurance is the most efficient way of
paying for health services. The two
major blessing of the single payer health
insurance are: 1) it's the simplest and most
efficient way to pay for health care, and 2)
it would save billions of dollars every year
because it would bypass (eliminate the need for)
the present health insurance companies.
Why?
Why? Why?
What is being
done in England and Canada may or may not be the
correct solution in the United States.
But the bottom line is that the present health
insurance payment system is definitely not the answer. Why? because the present
system is a financial
disaster. Service wise, it's also
a disaster.
If a single
payer system works well in England, and in Canada,
and if a single payer system works well in both Medicare
and in the Veterans Administration in the United States, why was it not even one
of the options offered by the Obama Administration
in their proposed, health care reform
legislation?
The
Tacklers and Blockers?
We've already
told you the only answer you really need to
know. The answer begins with
money, its middle name is money, and it ends with
money. The answer is Insurance
Industry Profits. A single payer
health insurance system would bypasses (eliminate
the need for) the present health insurance
companies.
De-throne
the Sacred Cow?
Many people hold
the belief that we cannot interfere with what is
falsely labeled as "a free market economy.
The opponents of
single-payer health insurance say that a single payer
health insurance system is a problem
because it would
eliminate the need for the present health
insurance companies. That's like
saying we shouldn't rid the world of the land
mines that have blown the legs off or killed
thousand of humans because it would eliminate the
need for land mine manufacturers. If
something isn't working or if something is
stealing billions of dollars from the public, if
something is causing the deaths of thousands of
people each year, should we keep it or replace
it?
Another thing to
consider is that insurance companies sell far more
than health insurance. Taking them out
of the health care loop will not eliminate
them. It will only take away one of
their
cash cows.
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It doesn't take
a genius to see that all
the fighting is not really about insurance, it's
about three basic issues -- MONEY !
-- PROFITS ! -- and CASH COWS! Our conservative friends can't
imagine a world without cash cows for their
super-wealthy cronies.
Even though a
single-payer system the most efficient way to pay for services and
even though it would save billions of dollars
every year, it can't become the law in the United
Sates because the insurance industry owns the
votes of too many politicians.
The
second reason is that the Republicans are fighting
tooth and nail to stop, interfere with and/or
destroy anything the Obama Administration
does. They are hopelessly stuck in divisive,
antiquated, dysfunctional, kill-the-opponent,
take-no-prisoners
politics. They are adamantly opposed
any and all forms of health insurance reform because
anything new would
be a decisive victory for President Obama and for
the Democratic Party.
So what do
we do, role over and play dead?
Hell
no! We pull what, in football, is
called an end run. We solve this problem in
two stages. We'll include the highlights here
and direct you to the detailed comprehensive explanation on page
three.
Stage one is to
dis-empower the health insurance companies by
taking their profits away. We can do this in two
ways, both involve the use of non-profit
foundations.
Way One -- Independent
Non-Profit Foundations as Replacements:
One way is by
setting up a network of independent,
non-government, non-profit
foundations. Each foundation creates its own
profit-oriented corporation and the for-profit
organizations provides the same services that the
present insurance companies are
providing. We simply set up a
competing business of which majority stock is
owned by the non-profit foundation. The
profits go to the foundation's five
beneficiaries, to the employees,
management, customers,
and the environment. If the
corporation sells or gives away an stock, the
stockholders would also be among the
beneficiaries.
Once
the insurance industry understands that it no
longer has anything to gain by opposing
single-payer health insurance, it will as
corporations always do. It will pull in its
high-priced lawyers and go where the profit are.
Speaking
to the Opposition:
Opponents
will say, we already have something like this in
the form of insurance co-ops. There
are co-ops, but they are not the same as what is
being proposed. We recommend that you
examine what is being offered, and how the new
system will function before dismissing the
proposals suggested on this website.
See the page titled: Health Insurance - The Problem -
A Solution.
Way Two --- Independent
Non-Profit Foundations as Partners:
The
second way, which nobody can dismiss by saying
that it already exists, is to re-structure the management aspect of
the health insurance companies using The
New Corporate World Foundation's Win-Win Business
Format. To see how this done, readers are
directed to the page titled: Health Insurance - The Problem -
A Solution.
Would you like a
free-market health-insurance-payment-system? A system without the
exploitation of anything or anyone -- without the
greed -- without the environmental
destruction -- without ripping off
customers -- without endangering the
health and the lives of customers or
employees -- without any government bureaucrats
-- without overpaid corporate executive
putting billions of dollars in their own
pockets -- and without billions of
dollars being siphoned off by high-paid
executives to pay health insurance industry
corporate stockholders? If you answered
yes, here's the solution you are looking
for:
http://www.TruthSpeaker.net/health-insurance-solution.html#gr˛
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