Health care insurance premiums are rising again, and the health insurance gurus are blaming it on rising health care costs. Well, it’s true. Health care costs in America. It really, really costs.

Regular readers of this blog may remember my wife’s $2,500 sprained, and possibly broken, ankle. That was just the visit to the emergency room and did not include the followup visit to our primary care physician and the $143 boot for her foot.

2009 is behind us now, and I can report to you that our health insurance paid absolutely nothing for our medical care last year. Nothing. Nada. Not one cent. Why? Our deductible was $2,300, and our $2,000 in bills didn’t quite make it. But we got close. This year our deductible is $100 more. And, yes, our premium went up, too. Now, our premium didn’t go up because of our health care costs to the insurance company – they didn’t pay anything last year!

Health insurance costs in California almost made me feel ashamed of complaining about my personal situation. The Los Angeles Times published a story, "Anthem Blue Cross dramatically raising rates for Californians with individual health policies" that told of exhorbitant increases of up to 39%. One couple reported their new premium will be $27,336, up from $20,184. The new amount exceeds the poverty level in California for a family of five.

Now, let’s just assume this family of two earned $4,000 per month, prior to getting laid off. They would qualify for California’s maximum unemployment benefit of $450 per week, or about $1,800 per month. To keep their health insurance would cost $2,278 per month. You don’t even need Jethro Bodine to tell you that you can’t pay $2,278 with $1,800. You could come close if you moved out of your house and ate out of garbage cans.

Is this the health care we want in America?

Health Insurance Profits

The situation with Anthem Blue Cross in California is being investigated to make certain at least 70% of the premium is being paid out in benefits. In other words, 27.3% of that 39% increase must be paid out in benefits. That leaves 11.7% for employee pay raises and profit. And exactly how much do you expect the employees are getting in pay raises? 1%, 2% if they’re good?

But that’s not all. Anthem Blue Cross of California was fined $1 million by the state. Anthem was rejecting 20% of claims and canceling policies of pregnant women and chronically ill patients. Only in California? Not on your life. In Nevada, Anthem was able to negotiate a settlement with the state for about $1 million. In Kentucky, Anthem was ordered to refund $23.7 million to seniors and disabled patients because of inaccurately processed Medicare claims. And Colorado got a $5.7 million refund for its Anthem customers.

Is this what Republicans are trying to protect?

Health care is not okay in America. Health insurance is not okay in America. The ONLY way to fix the problem is with Medicare for All, but we are running from it as hard as we can. Well, at least the politicians are running from it, and those who are blindly following the lies being paid for by the health care and health insurance industry.

Think about it. Get the facts, and tell your friends. America must do something! Oh, and you might want to read about our new American Beer Party.

Sites We Like

Online Little Rock.com is where Uncle Brice got his start. There’s a ton of information on this site about Arkansas, Little Rock, dining, dancing, shopping (and shopping online). It’s also a high-trafficked Civil War information site. You can even find out stuff about all the colleges and universities of Arkansas.

Home Business Opportunities is a site that has never been more in demand. You can find legitimate ways to earn money from home as well as a lot of information about Internet marketing, writing, building traffic for your website, and more.

The owners of Online Little Rock have a mission in life to teach everyone about brain injury. They have two websites that have hundreds of pages of information, including visitor-submitted Brain Injury Stories. The sites are Brain Injury Online and Brain Injury Guide.

Beth’s Brain Injury Blog is a favorite in the brain injury community. She writes about the good, the bad and the ugly of brain injury and how you must maintain a sense of humor to live successfully whether you are the victim or a caregiver.

Single payer health insurance is not new to American politics. When Teddy Roosevelt ran for President of the United States under the Bullmoose Party (after having served two terms as a Republican) his party platform stated, "The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for … the protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use." That was 1912.

Fast forward to March 2009 and President Barack Obama, "The problems we face today are a direct consequence of actions that we failed to take yesterday. Since Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform nearly a century ago, we have talked and we have tinkered. We have tried and fallen short, we’ve stalled for time, and again we have failed to act because of Washington politics or industry lobbying."

The United States is in danger of falling short again. Montana Senator Max Backward, I mean, Baucus, is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee holding hearings on health care reform. Kevin Zeese, Executive Director of the Campaign for Fresh Air and Clean Politics, wrote, "Baucus has held two hearings so far and has refused to allow advocates for the most popular reform – a single payer national health policy – to even testify. Single payer, improved Medicare for all, is favored by more than 60% of Americans as well as majorities of doctors, nurses and economists. It is the most cost-effective and efficient way to provide health care to all Americans from cradle to grave."

Zeese points out that Senator Backward, I mean, Baucus, received the following campaign contributions in 2008:

Americans Need to Unite

Even though recent polls show 60% of Americans favor a single payer system, there is still resistance that is very similar to the naysayers who opposed mortgage bailouts. "I don’t think I should have to pay my taxes because my neighbor bought a house he couldn’t afford." I’m sure you’ve heard that time and again.

Let me ask you a question or three. Do you pay taxes to provide Fire Department coverage for your neighbor who left a space heater too close to a set of drapes? Do you pay taxes to provide free public education to every child in America? Do you pay taxes to provide Police Department protection for those folks across town living next to a crack house? Sure you do! Everyone deserves fire protection, police protection and a free public education. Like Teddy Roosevelt said, we all deserve "protection of home life against the hazards of sickness."

Physicians for a National Health Program answer questions on their website like, "Is national health insurance ‘socialized medicine’?" They answer, "No. Socialized medicine is a system in which doctors and hospitals work for and draw salaries from the government. Doctors in the Veterans Administration and the Armed Services are paid this way. The health systems in Great Britain and Spain are other examples. But in most European countries, Canada, Australia and Japan they have socialized health insurance, not socialized medicine. The government pays for care that is delivered in the private (mostly not-for-profit) sector. This is similar to how Medicare works in this country. Doctors are in private practice and are paid on a fee-for-service basis from government funds. The government does not own or manage medical practices or hospitals."

I already pointed out how Senator Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas is probably in the pocket of insurance and pharmaceutical companies. You might want to read this article about her (Sen. Blanche Lincoln Co-sponsors SHOP)and then check out your own members of Congress. Let’s do something right this time. We’ve been talking about it for nearly 100 years. It’s time to get out of the outhouse and solve this health care mess once and for all.

What others are saying about Single Payer Health Insurance

Green Party Joins Single Payer Health Care National Day of Action – Green Party leaders stressed that the ‘options’ plans favored by many Democrats are designed to sustain for-profit insurance companies through massive taxpayer-funded subsidies or mandates, and said that Single-Payer removes the private …

Get Out In the Streets And FIGHT for Universal, Single Payer … – Yes, single payer universal health care is socialized medicine. It is not socialism. It is just like we do for police, fire-departments, roads, schools.. and it is a huge, despicable lie when right wingers try to frame it as something akin … a desperate lie which serves only the giant health care corporations. When someone says single payer universal health insurance is socialism, simply reply “only to morons and right wing traitors who put corporations before country.” …

Make It the Baucus 13 « Single Payer Action – On their backs, they wore signs that said “Nurses Say: Stop AHIP. Pass Single Payer.” (AHIP stands for America’s Health Insurance Plans – the health insurance industry lobby.) After the 30 nurses were led out of the room, …

Has Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln secretly joined the Republican Party or just completely sold out to the Banking industry? I heard Senator Dick Durbin talking to Chris Matthews on MSNBC the other day saying he felt the bankers owned the United States Senate. My first question was, "Where’d they get the dang money to buy a senator?" Then I remembered how they took money from the federal government and absolutely refused to tell anyone what they were doing with it. Now I know.

Senator Durbin appeared on the ED Show on MSNBC to express his concerns before the vote.

President Obama told us plain and simple that he planned to do something to help people keep their homes. The aforementioned Senator Dick Durbin from Illinois jumped right on the bandwagon and offered a piece of legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to renegotiate mortgages for homeowners if their bank refused to do so. The idea is two-fold. First, the homeowner gets to keep their home and keep making payments. Second, there’s nothing like a foreclosed home on the block to send property values slithering like an oiled-up college coed on a water slide. (Note to Dan Rather: see, I can come up with ridiculous sayins on my own just like you did during the selection of 2000.)

Now here’s something you might not know. Those self-same judges can already do that for yachts, vacation homes, boats and speculative real estate investors. They just can’t do it for individual homeowners for their primary residence. It seems, on face value, that Senator Durbin’s legislation would be a win-win situation because it would remove a toxic asset from the bank’s unbalanced sheet, protect neighbor’s property values and keep the troubled family with a roof over their head.

Who would oppose such a win-win-win proposal? The stupid bankers! That’s who. Now we all know that bankers and big business have owned the Republican Party hook, line and sinker for as long as I can remember. Individual American homeowners could take solace in the fact that the Grand OLD Party can’t do much more than argue with one another now-a-days, and the Democrats would help them out; after all, the president wanted this to happen.

The Bankers Won

On April 30, 2009 this legislation was voted on and defeated in the Senate when 11 Democrats joined the 40 Republicans to oppose it. Senators Blance Lincoln and Mark Pryor from Arkansas joined the Republicans. So I decided to investigate a few things. Maybe this would not help anyone in Arkansas and Lincoln and Pryor didn’t care about helping anyone else in America.

The Congressional Record showed that the Durbin Amendment would save 7,297 homes in Arkansas from foreclosure. It also showed that neighboring property values in Arkansas would be spared a loss of $85,016,000. That’s over $85 million in property value that would be protected. Now, you and I know that school districts get a lot of funding from property taxes. Reduce the taxable property by $85 million and you can’t help but reduce the money going to the schools.

Since Senator Pryor ain’t running for reelection anytime soon, I was limited in my study to Senator Lincoln’s fundraising for her 2010 campaign. There it was. A March 2, 2009 contribution from the American Bankers Association Political Action Committee. A February 24 contribution from the Bank of America Political Action Committee. A March 3 contribution from the Mortgage Bankers Association Political Action Committee. And there were more contributions from investment firm PACs, and individuals who worked in the banking and investment industries. The biggest Arkansas contributor was Stephens Investments with something like $34,000 in money given to the Senator.

Am I saying Senator Lincoln sold out her constituents? I’m saying it looks like it. I don’t know what was on her mind at the time she voted. All I can judge her by is her action.

But I will tell you this. Health Care Reform will be considered at a later date and the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of Senator Lincoln’s Political Action Committee contributors are from the medical and insurance industries.

The 2010 election in Arkansas could come down to a Republican who proudly wears the button on their lapel and Senator Lincoln who wears her Republican lapel under her Democratic hat.

For more information about her political contributions, you can visit the Federal Election Commission Blanche Lincoln Page.

Take a look at what others are saying:

Arkansas Blog: The shape of things to come – WASHINGTON – Marking President Obama’s 100th day in office, U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) helped the Democrats pass a $3.5 trillion budget resolution today – despite announcements from the U.S. Department of Commerce this morning …

DownWithTyranny!: Estate Tax: Blanche Lincoln And Jon Kyl Attempt … – No senator, no matter which party he or– in the case of Blanche Lincoln– she belongs to, should be re-elected if they oppose this amendment on Thursday. Yesterday evening almost the whole Senate agreed to shut off the filibuster and …

Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln Reverses EFCA Support, But … – Wal-Mart Watch is a nationwide campaign to reveal the harmful impact of walmart on american families and demand reform of their business practices.