Arkansas Blog

Isn't the point of the 6-hour (I think that is right, but it doesn't matter) clinic to get the needy lined up, and eventually some turned away, to show how bad the situation is? Television will show long health-care lines that will resemble long soup lines from the Depression.

It is great that *some* people will get much-needed medical care tomorrow, but the I don't think the motives are so noble. It is just politics. Which is how things get done, so not-noble is not that important.

I think you are wrong, Doc. I have referred several people and they are going because they have no other options. They know they are sick but can't afford to go to a doctor.
Are you willing to take patients for free for a month, DOC?
If so, let us know where you are located and post your phone number. You'll have a very busy month.

Republicans fighting like crazy to stop the expansion of heatlh
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I still can't figure out why Max is so gung ho for the Health Insurance Reform scam that Obama is pushing. Even hopium intoxicated MichaelMoore.com , now says that the current legislation is welfare for the Insurance companies. Ed Schultz is also waking up from the hopium overdose.

""It's not reform," Schultz insisted.

"It means a 25 percent increase, they'll have the ability to execute and since insurance companies have already raised rates for the last four years by double-digits, we can expect -- based on the bill -- another rate increase by the insurance companies."

Schultz called the bill a "sellout" to insurers because the bill only allows 11 million people into a limited government-run health insurance option, and includes a mandate for Americans to buy private policies.

"Maybe instead of a sellout it's a bailout," Kucinich responded. "Maybe what we're looking at here is another way that Wall Street's speculative engine can be fueled, this time with the help of the premiums of tens of millions of Americans."

(No sh*t)

kizzy, I understand that people will be going because they have no other options, and appreciate that some will get attention. But, will everyone that shows up be seen? Some is better than none. A combination of genuine good will and manipulative politics isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Oh, and I'm not that kind of Doc. In my next life, I will try to make better career decisions!

Clinton says he won't attend tomorrow's free clinic because Olbermann has politicized it. Clickee.

HenryS, take a hour or so to read the bill. It makes some substantive changes in the way things are
done. I agree with you and with ES and many, many Mds that a single payer, Medicare part E would be
best but it ain't gonna happen.

This bill is about health insurance reform, not healthcare reform. It will subsidize the demand for services and insurance coverage. Dick Morris says it provides nothing for increasing the number of physicians and
nurses and apparently it doesn't. So they play with the 'free market' model just on the demand end of things but do not address the supply end.

But it's a start and will likely be amended many times. Few, if any, cannot tell how much it will cost or if any long-term savings will accrue from it.

According to UA professor Leflar the number of uninsured have been greatly under estimated due the counting-estimating techniques used:

"He [Leflar] said that the number of people without health insurance often quoted in the news - 46 million- is only about half the real number because it includes only those without coverage for 12 months. The actual number without insurance is about twice that many - about a third of the population, he said.
NW Arkansas Times, Oct 8, 2009

It's unfortunate for ALL Americans that comprehensive health policy cannot be formulated in a comprehensive way with rational planning for facilities and adequate personnel. But our politics are adversarial and have been since Reagan.

I can think of no other nation that expects free enterprise to provide adequate health care esp, using 2nd and 3rd party payers. There's too many markets to be appeased, too many profits to be covered.

But this is what our special interest group nation has evolved into and it's doing no one any good.

So, at best this is a start. Some of it is a mess before it begins. Hopefully messes can be cleaned up.
.

P.S. the bill may be 2000 legislative pages long but that is nothing but a red herring. All lines are double spaced and many pages have one or two lines. It's fewer words and length than Palins new book.

So, at best this is a start. Some of it is a mess before it begins. Hopefully messes can be cleaned up.
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I hope you are right. I think it will kill any chance for providing health care for all Americans. I read through the HR version last month maybe there have been major changes. I usually use the PHNP web site for info.

I agree that no matter how crappy the current law will be, if it is a path to better, that's OK. I think it will be a dead end, however. Most of the "pro-consumer" parts don't start until 2014(?) and run to 2019, then the cost go through the roof. IMO, the real danger is that this legislation isn't going to deliver and instead of changing it so that it will evolve into single payer, the public attitude will be hardened into the gov't can't do anything right. No matter what, the time line is to 2020, so real reform is off the table for >ten years.

I think starting over, combined with a worsening job situation is a better way to go. Obama doesn't give a sh*t about health care or the people affected by not having any; he only wants a win. If he looses maybe the Dems will start acting like Democrats.

Very well said eLwood. That is the best well thought out short explanation of the bill I have read anywhere.

You got to start somewhere. Expecting perfection on the first try is somewhat unrealistic,

I expect to hear great stories out of the free health clinic tomorrow, I'm just sorry I don't live close enough to lend a hand. I'll be front and center if they ever throw one over here on the left side of the state. We'll wear C-Span out tomorrow and probably be bald headed by the time they vote tomorrow night. With LIEberman saying he'll vote no, I still can't figure out where Harry Reid is going to get his 60 votes. And talk about politicizing....Blanche and Landrieu holding their tongues until tomorrow is criminal. What kind of silly game are they playing.

In other news.....our future very much depends on what President Obama decides to do in Afghanistan. Historically, no US President has ever had the balls to de-escalated a war in progress and bring our troops home. And since WWII, we've lost thousands of troops for nothing.

Click on my blue name to watch this week's Bill Moyers going thru the LBJ tapes to show how and why our leaders tossed the dice costing us over 58,000 lives for nothing. We're at another crossroad today and I imagine the same conversations are going on in and out of the White House today. Please please.....this time let the chest-beaters lose.

"Please please.....this time let the chest-beaters lose."

From your mouth to God's ear....

Thanks DBI for posting the BILL MOYERS link to his show on ESCALATING Viet Nam. I recall being in a debate in 1965 when I had bought into the domino theory that all of Asia would fall if S. Viet Nam fell.

Well, it fell in 1975 not under the control of some idealistic liberal but under Nixon who at times was a reasonable person and saw it was a nowhere situation. I still was asking Rwingers in 2005

"What would we have won if we stayed in Viet Nam and defeated the Cong?"

I have yet to get a reasonable answer on that one. It took decades for then Sec of Defense McNamara to admit his mistaken ways. I suppose that's good but I doubt 59,000 dead GIs and 250,000 wounded for life thought very much of his repentant ways. In hindsight few wars are justified, especially those that are optional, like Iraq, Viet Name.

Maybe BHO is smart. Maybe he doesn't wish to be in history's lesson of prolonging and ramping up the war that brought America to its knees. A war that in 8 years Rumsfield, Cheney and what's his name could never prosecute. The enemy only need to survive. The invader must conquer. Simple arithmetic. Costly deal.

.

On second thought perhaps BHO could give his general a big troop surge and urge and coax them to release glowing reports each month of how well it's all going and attack as unAmerican and unpatriotic any paper or TV network who disagrees. Then, in 2011 simply declare-

.....................MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.........

bring the troops home and bask in yet another electoral victory.

The war would be going on while Palin, Huck, and Romney could be labeled un American and NOT Supporting our troops as they will inevitably criticize the conduct of the War. BHO could always say
THE GENERALS are in Charge and THEY get whatever they ask for...secretly demoting the ones who step out of line. The WINDING IT DOWN mantra could be spread during election 2012 and we're all happy.
Victorious America once again rules the world.

Hey. It worked in '04. Nobody is any wiser. Some of the faithful are even ready for another Bush to finish the Great Depression they began.

Doc--they said they have around 1400 patients with appointments and can take up to 1500 due to the large number of volunteers (1200--more than in some other cities). They said they will also be able to take some walk-ins on a first-come-first served basis. The clinic is open from noon-7pm and they said that anyone that was in there at 7pm would be seen so it will actually run beyond that time.

Another interesting statistic that I saw mentioned in relation to the clinic in New Orleans and in the interview on KTHV tonight is that 83% of the people have jobs. They are not homeless as most people would think. They just don't make enough money to afford health care.

I will be there as a non-medical volunteer DBI and will try to report back tomorrow evening about my experience.

NVR - Thank's for the info. I hope everyone who shows up gets what they need.

And I don't know what Thanks's owned.

The current bill would not be needed if they just took the frame work of the Federal Employees Health Insurance Program and used it as their bill. The problem is that the mindset of elected officials and their staff's are not going to give their standard of insurance to everyone.

Handing out $100 million dollar earmarks to fence sitting moderates shows that congress is not going to fix anything.

If the health care bill costs a $1 trillion over tens years or if it costs $6 trillion, it's still going to take our national debt close to being towards a defaultable growth restricting level. Ever since the Clinton budget balancing act of the 90's, the interest payments that are suppose to be paid by the US government on the US government bonds held by the medicaid/medicare/Social Security trusts have been written off as a cost saving measure for the budget deficit. With our national debt predicted to come close to $12 trillion, the almost $6 trillion of national debt owed to the trusts medicaid/medicare/Social Security combined with any earmarks for the new health insurance could be a loophole for congress to cut the national debt in half if they create a health insurance program that takes us close to a default on national debt. If we come to the brink of defaulting on our national debt, congress has the choice of defaulting on the national debt and allowing the assets of private citizens be seized by our debt holders, or they can declare the programs of medicaid/medicare/Social Security/new health care program as insolvent and dissolve the trusts of each program. Overnight more than $6 trillion in our national debt would be erased taking us back below a national debt of $6 trillion. There would probably be some public outrage, but Congress has been saying for the last decade that the medicaid/medicare/Social Security programs would go bust. The option of just a default on US Govt Bonds held in those trusts would be a lot less painful for individuals than if they had to forfeit their 401k or home.

Years ago I wrote a thesis ,that became part of a dissertation, on what happens to a government when it defaults on it's debt. I had in mind to write it on the fall of the USSR, but before I got it finished the Asia crisis happened. Since the paper had to be US centric I also wrote about 120 pages on a US "What-if" scenario. It took me close to 3 months to get anywhere on the avenue that foreign lenders would have to collect on defaulted US Treasury Bonds. I finally found a retired US Federal Reserve Economist in his late 80's who had some knowledge on the subject. His mentor, another US Federal Reserve economist had actually been around in 1923 when France and Belgium seized the Ruhr valley in Germany as payment for Germany's default on it's national debt. The late Economist's notes, along with the information he had told his mentoree on the subject, basically told me that after the 1920's a lot of nation's had set up their national banking systems as the collateral in case of a default on national debt. Changes to the US National Bank Act of 1864 after the 1920's, basically set up the assets and accounts of US Banks that had a National Charter and not a state charter as the means of collateral for a default. I spent most of a summer at the National archives, the LoC, and in the record rooms of government agencies trying to find a set operating procedure. I never found a set procedure, but I did basically find enough dialogue that I was able to conclude that the Government in granting the privilege to allow citizens the opportunity to hold personal assets and conduct banking, it would hold the right to use the assets and accounts in the nationally charted banks as a avenue of collateral in the case of a default on national debt. The precedence on the issue actually went back to documentation of the First Bank of the US which was a government bank set up by Congress. My conclusion was that in the event of a default of US National Debt, that congress due to procedures set eons ago, would have to first look at non military assets to settle the debt, which due to the low demand and inconvenience of those assets would then turn to liquefying the nationally charted banks and the accounts held within those banks, as procedures would only allow the use of military assets for debt settlement as the last resort.

In a clif notes version, the future costs of this Health Care Bill could be a poison pill option to be able to dissolve the trusts of Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security and reduce the national debt by $6 trillion dollars over night as the citizens of the country would not allow the use of their personal assets to settle the default of the national debt. It's basically a way for our own congress to be the corporate raider of a organization that has become overburden and debt laden by it's own legacy and entitlement programs. Think of the government as a steel company of the late 1980's. If a Congress and President was to follow out the above option, they would be scorned in the short term just like FDR was for his New Deal and the NRA, but in the long term they would rise to the level that FDR did for his New Deal and the NRA. Do the politicians of right now want to be known for the short term or do they want to reach the mystical profit level of FDR?

When Argentina defaulted on it's debt in 2001, the government started seizing the agricultural products of the farmer's as a way to settle the default. They would just lay claim to the grain, meat or fiber at the elevator or warehouse. Somewhere in the Argentine Constitution the government could collect whatever the ground of the country produced as a way of settling debt. So farmers just started storing everything on their farms.

wordonthestreet is so fitting for your lengthy pos. I have no idea which asylum you attended but I sincerely think you should return and let them finish their work.

Argentina owed EXTERNAL debt. They have renegotiated the terms. The USA according to your listing owes
INTERNAL debt. Try your best to understand the difference.

Leftist are for health care takeover by the government not because they think it will improve the delivery of health care. They know it won't. They are for this because it leads to single payer system. That means that government will increase its control over us. Leftist want to create a plantation system where the government is the master and we owe him for our very existence. That is the ultimate goal. Health care takeover is just a means to that end.

Elwood,

Maybe you should see if the free clinic has a vision check, I'm sure young Will can walk you over to the eye check station. You also might need to get checked for "MSDS syndrome" or omarosa disease.

I understand if some of this is over your head. Almost 4 years ago on this blog, I was talking about how sub-prime mortgages and CDS would bring our financial system to it's knees and most of you said I was crazy back then. In my line of work, I get paid to look at scenarios that most people would think are crazy, but that companies and governments still want to have a way CYA option for just in case it happens.

The US has both types of debt, just like ARG. As I mentioned in the earlier posting, the US will have about $12 trillion in debt when we hit the new ceiling. If we default, we default across the board on both types and open ourselves up for collection. If before we default, Congress decides to follow the actions I mentioned above they would effectively decrease our debt in half. Our countries bond ratings would stay good and not move to 3rd world status. Think of it as Oprah coming along and paying off half your mortgage, you would suddenly increase the amount of credit that you have and get better terms on new credit. Congress doesn't have Oprah, but they do have the public expectation that the MIC and SS trusts will go belly up. The public might be without the entitlement programs, but it would beat even higher unemployment and mega inflation that would occur with a default.

Argentina did renegotiate on some of it's debt (at great urging by the US to ARG's debt holders), it forfeited overseas accounts on some, and it technically bought its farmers grain with worthless inflated Argentine Pesos and then sold it on the world market for hard currencies. The debt crisis in ARG was painful for the citizens of that country. Inflation was rampant and the price of an imported good jumped up 6 to 8 times on some goods. Farmers in that country started holding their goods on their farm and used them to barter for other goods. As a result the food distribution system in the country broke down in the populated areas. Argentina for almost 5 years saw foreign direct investment in that country cease to exist. It wasn't until 2005 when the Chinese started dumping money into investments in ARG's Agriculture export sector, that the country actually rebounded.

Maybe you would want a default, but a default in this country would take our government and its spending policies to a very conservative state. No more food assistance programs or other government programs.

If you deal with any of the financial markets you will see that the one safe guard in the event of a default is trending upwards. The price of gold is at record highs. Trader's and Banker's somewhere think that our country's situation is not going to get better.

Bo--
you have been drinkin' too much @ the tea parties!
Americans need to take back our Congress and Senate because
people elected by us are owned by profit-driven insurance companies and Wall Street.
Never thought I'd ever agree with Sen. Sanders of VT -- he made more sense on the health care issue than anyone on the news lately.
He's right --- as a "world leader" nation, we should be ashamed of the ridiculous profits the insurance companies are sucking out of families, businesses, sick people, doctors and anyone who touches the private insurance companies.
If we could all go walk the halls of Congress every day like the $1+ MILLION day insurance lobbyist group, perhaps there would be a bit more listening to VOTERS at home.
Just think of all the good that could be done in one of these dire needs --- hungry people who could be fed, the illiterate taught to read, the students sent to college, mentally ill cared for, homeless transitioned --- with the millions spent on paid propaganda to defeat fair access to health care and protect greedy profits!

How it works. Click on Cato.

Cato,

Will the free clinic include those?

If you follow the lead of bernie then I really have nothing to say that you would find protiable.

If you follow the lead of bernie then I really have nothing to say that you would find profitable.

Boosters then . . . trolls now. Clik.

>>The US has both types of debt, just like ARG. As I mentioned in the earlier posting, the US will have about $12 trillion in debt when we hit the new ceiling.<<

Again, patient, internal vs. external.

Elwood.

It doesn't matter if it is internal or external. Both are covered by the same treasury securities and the culmination of both types affects the rating of debt. We could default on the internal, which is what we are technically doing right now by not paying the interest on the the trillions held by the SS/Medi trusts and having the trusts spend incoming revenue to fund themselves. However another trillion is the retirement funds of government employees, highway trust, FDIC etc. A default on the servicing of that debt would be brutal.

A full default on internal debt would carry over to the rating of our external debt. Either default is bad, no matter if it is internal or external. A internal default would be better than a external since we are basically a net importer of goods in this country. However a internal default will change the setup of our external financing for the worse. The majority of our debt is external anyway, so a internal default just tells the holders of our external debt that we can't afford to pay our own bills.

It's not good to default on anything. In personal finance we don't reward or tolerate those who bite off more than they can chew. So why expect someone to tolerate it with world financing.

I'm trying to explain this to a guy who couldn't find the Nutrition spending level in a farm bill. Still claiming that food stamps/school lunch is only $10 billion over 6 years?