Lip Service and Posturing.

WASHINGTON – Health industry groups are promising to reduce the growth of spending by $2 trillion over 10 years by improving coordination, focusing on efficiency and embracing better technology and regulatory reform.
Hospitals, insurance companies, drug makers and doctors have told President Barack Obama in a letter that they'll voluntarily slow their rate increases in coming years. It's a move that government economists say would create breathing room to help provide health insurance to an estimated 50 million Americans who now do not have it.

So, president OB14me is sitting down with CEOs, corporate benefits officers, union leaders and state and local health officials to talk about health care reform. On the surface it looks good to this progressive eye but, as with many things I see in this new administration it's a lot of the same shit different day. Much like Obama's handling of the financial industry crisis by surrounding himself and listening to those who helped create the problem, he now is seeking advice from Health industries biggest for profit CEO's in order to improve the health care system. WTF?!

Technology and regulations are not the problem with our system of health care.
The number one problem with our current health care system is the for profit middle men known as Insurance companies. Number two problem are the Drug companies that spent billions over the past 10 years lobbying congress in order to prevent the U.S. from buying cheaper drugs from Canada and to prevent alternative home grown drugs, (pot) from becoming legal. The number three reason our health care system is broke is due to the deregulated for profit hospitals. When 40% of your health care dollar goes to a medical industry CEO's bonus check, stock benefit, or newly purchased private jet, understand that your health is not their main concern.

Whenever health care insurance or providers are "for profit" organizations the cost of seeing a doctor, treatments, and prescriptions are going to cost nearly twice that of a single payer system. We all need to be able to buy into medi-care. Period end of sentence. With a cost of about 3% of every health care dollar spent for administration costs. No, executive bonuses, funding for lobbyist, private jets, share holders, etc. etc. If we do away with all the profit motive we could have true affordable quality health care. As with everything else that was deregulated in the 1980's, greed and stock share value replaced customer service and company longevity. No longer did a company need loyal customers to survive, only clever and shrewd manipulators of the stock market. This is why the majority of insurance companies (if not all) pay millions and millions for their top executives. Customers may provide millions of dollars in revenue but, a good CEO can rise the price of stock shares that'll make the company billions. With a "B".

Where are the single payer advocates in these meetings with Obama? Not one of the participants in these discussions will even mention it. Why? It would put most of them out of business. That's why all they are saying is "reform." "Reform" is the corporate buzz word meaning lip service and superficial changes to the existing system. This way even the most conservative CEO can appear to be for the common man by calling for "reform" without endorsing the logical solution that is single payer health care. A national health insurance program like those in every other industrialized country in the world is the only way those of us who aren't in congress, the senate, or have a few million in the bank will ever be able to acquire quality health care. The folks sitting down with Obama know this but will never suggest it. They will only talk of reduction in their spending. Streamlining the health system as long as they get to do the streamlining. The 2 trillion they say they'll cut from their spending will be in the way of reducing patient coverages, higher deductibles, and denying patient benefits.

Please OB14me, stop with the same old wine in a different bottle routine. Bring some voices from the far left into the room while trying to come up with these solutions. as of now, you're listening to the right, the far right, and a few moderates. You were elected by the majority of center, left of center and far left American voters who believed that you weren't going to do business as usual. You were going to get the troops out of Iraq but, I see they're still there. Wall Street gets bailed out again and again while the tax payer's foot the bill. Labor union's and labor must make concession after concession while the manufacturers executive's receive bonus after bonus. Now, you have a chance to fix our broken health care system and the Democratic Socialists are exactly the kind of people you need to listen to. Bernie Sanders and his ilk are at your beckoned call, sir. Please utilize their experience and common sense approaches to healing what ails this country.

DaG Out