happy birthday medicare

illinois congresswoman jan schakowsky - who has been a single payer advocate (supporting an improved medicare for all through h.r. 676) - "pops myths" about the affordable care act [youtube below] - and on medicare's 47th birthday on friday.


 

on the same occasion, the houston chronicle runs an article by margaret nosak, professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine and president of Health Care for All Texas.  

she writes, "Before Medicare was enacted 1965, most retired older people were at risk of financial ruin when they got sick. Medicare changed that picture, and our state and nation are much better for it."

hmm, sounds familiar nowadays to many in other age groups, too, doesn't it!  including the recently horrifying story of the shooting victim who faced a possible 2 million dollars in medical bills (the studio for dark knight rising now taking on his bills).  if i were an opponent of guaranteed health care for all, i might have been asking why that young man didn't have enough money saved up for these possible medical expenses!

for i have been told as much in debates on this subject with opponents.

also from margaret nosek:

Ironically, the best way to save Medicare is to improve and expand it to cover everybody. By establishing an improved Medicare for all, a single-payer health-care financing system, we could recoup about $400 billion that is wasted each year on unnecessary, private-insurance-related profits, paperwork and bureaucracy. That's enough money to provide health care to everyone in the U.S. with no co-pays or deductibles and without spending a penny more than we do now.

We would also acquire other cost-control tools like the market clout needed to negotiate lower prices for medical supplies, and the ability to set global budgets for hospitals.

This type of system would bring back free choice of doctor and hospital - the one thing everyone agrees is among the top goals of health-care reform.

Polls show an improved-Medicare-for-all approach enjoys the support of about two-thirds of the public and more than half of all physicians. Yet up to now, this commonsense solution has been blocked by private insurers, pharmaceutical companies and their allies in Congress.

On Medicare's anniversary, what do you say we give them a run for their money? Tell your elected officials the ACA doesn't go far enough. Cut the private insurers out of the picture. We need an improved and expanded Medicare for all.

if the houston chronicle is printing margaret nosek's article, perhaps we're approaching a time when it won't *just* be 2/3rds of americans and more than 1/2 of american physicians supporting such a strange idea - like the one they have in canada.

and maybe when we write to our representatives, that time, he or she will write back, saying (instead), "you're so correct!  and that's exactly what we're going to accomplish today in congress.  so i just signed h.r. 676 (or its senate version)."

then we're really gonna party.