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2. Educate Yourself: READ The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care
3. Fight Ignorance… Get Off Your Ass and Do Something about Health Care

Would the U.S. as a nation ever consider actually looking at other countries as examples? Could systems and processes actually work better than they do in the absolute “best” country in the world? There is no question that health care systems in other countries do work better than ours. If Fox News-watching constituents of Republican congressmen could read this book (or even listen to this interview), maybe they might change their mind and fear change less than what we’re witnessing today. Well maybe not those constituents that are not on the insurance and pharmaceutical companies’ payrolls.

I’ll update this post after I actually read this book but if it’s nearly as intriguing as it sounds after listening to this interview, I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say. As the former chief of The Washington Post‘s London and Tokyo bureaus, Reid has had first hand experience with the health care systems of England, Japan, and France. His research for the book also led him to other European countries, Canada, India, and other countries. I suggest reading his article for The Washington Post entitled 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World.

He breaks down the worlds’ health care systems into 4 models and informs us that the U.S. actually employs each of the 4 models, depending on the person.

1. Native Americans and veterans have what is commonly referred to as the “William Beverage Model” (The government provides the care and the government pays for the care.), which is what they have in Great Britain, Spain, Italy and some other European countries. It’s paid for by taxes and what many Americans refer to pejoratively as “Socialized Medicine”.
2. “The Bizmark Model” (Private hospitals provide the care and private insurance companies pay) is what’s employed in France, Germany, Japan, and others. The insurance companies are like community organizations with the goal of keeping people healthy. They are non-profit organizations and Switzerland was the last country to have for-profit insurance companies. A referendum changed this when up to 5% of people in Switzerland were left uninsured when certain for-profit companies In most of these countries, people have the choice of many plans. This model is closest to what most Americans have (people who receive their insurance via their employers’ group insurance plan). The big difference is the non-profit nature of insurance companies in Europe and Japan.
3. “National Health Insurance Model”(A blend. Private doctors and private hospitals but the government pays). This is the system used in Canada. Because of recent cut backs due to the government trying to save money, there has been an increase in waiting time. Canadians do not want what they call a “two-tier system”. You can operate privately as a doctor, but then you relinquish your right to provide care through the national system. In the U.S., The National Insurance Model is like our Medicare, which pays most of the care for seniors over 65.
4. “Out of Pocket Model” (If you can pay, you get treatment. If you can’t pay, you don’t get treatment.) This is what most countries outside of the 40 richest nations have, along with to the millions of uninsured Americans, which make up approximately 17% of our population.

For more interesting details, listen to this great NPR interview with T.R. Reid:

So why is having 4 models a bad thing? After all, we’re all about choice here in the land of plenty. Well, aside from the fact that so many Americans are currently uninsured and that the status quo is failing, the administrative efforts associated with having so many different models create inefficiencies and higher costs. Our system is the least efficient system. In the U.S. 18-20% of health care costs are administrative as opposed to 4 – 5% in many European countries and Japan.

Right now, we’re at a critical crossroads in American history. We’ve got to decide as a people if we want to continue with the status quo (a system that is failing) or if we want to really create change. According to Reid, Taiwan decided to create a health care system that actually takes care of its people. The conservative party in Tawain conceded to public opinion and actually voted in and implemented a Canadian-like system. This concession came because of public outcry. Change is what we elected Obama for but we have to take part in implementing it. Make sure your voice is heard. Here’s a list of ideas of simple things you can do.

Also, I didn’t realize what I was missing by not getting more news and information from NPR, which I’ve always loved. So today, I joined their site and community online. What a great source of information NPR is.

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• A Summary of the Canadian Healthcare System by CANADIANS – not right-winger fear mongers (iflizwerequeen.com)

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1. Fight Ignorance… Get Off Your Ass and Do Something about Health Care
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That’s right. I would prefer to continue to be discriminated against as a gay American than to have a basic human right continue to be at the whim of insurance and pharmaceutical companies. That is saying a lot (if you know me). I know that there are probably a few of you out there who will access this blog post who will disagree with me on both fronts – Gay Rights and Health Care reform. You can choose whether or not you want to continue reading. I hope you do. For those of you that do in fact agree with me, it is indeed time to do something.

Do Something!

You, yes YOU need to actually do something. And if you’ve already done something, you need to do something more. It doesn’t have to require a lot of your time but I am pleading with you to so something, even if it’s just spreading this blog post virally to others.

Electing Obama president was the easy part. Now we’re in the trenches and this can’t be yet another time when people continue on with a business-as-usual attitude and think “They’ll work it out” or to give in to cynicism and just decide that there is no point. That’s what I often do but I don’t want to give in to cynicism this time. There is too much at stake.

One of the key reasons that we elected President Obama is so that we can reform the ridiculous Health Care system we’ve allowed ourselves to be dicked around by for years. If we really want reform, we need to stand up and say that we want it. And I mean everyone! Take some of the time you spend watching mindless television, cynical news programs, or playing games on Facebook  and help spread the word for other people to take action. Here are the three principals that President Obama laid out as a road map for congress to come up with a Health Care bill (taken directly from Barack Obama’s website).

Three Principals for Health Care Reform

In other words, a bill has not yet been constructed. Congress has been charged with drafting the bill and these are the tenets that they must keep in mind as they do it.

• Is there anything in these three principals about euthanizing senior sitizens? NO

• Is there anything is these three principals about rationing health care? NO

• Is there anything is these three principals that says that people will be left uninsured? NO

So what are all these people so up in arms about? Living in New York City, I view the behavior taking place at these town hall meeting as a sort of weird twilight zone episode where my country has been taken over by carnies. A circus and side show that is much more disturbing than anything Britney Spears could ever concoct. I realize that this could be considered an elitist attitude – gay city boy looking down at down-home country folk. I apologize if I offended anyone. But for God’s sake, where are these people getting their information? Why would people be so upset about the prospect of actually having less expensive health care?

The first question could be answered fairly easily. Where are these people getting their information?

• Special Interest Groups have launched a campaign based on scare tactics and mistruths.
• In addition, a viral e-mail chain claiming to provide a page-by-page analysis of the not yet completed healthcare bill has been sent out as fact.
• Disruptions at town hall meetings have been staged, organized, and funded by special interest groups trying to preserve our antiquated system.

Yesterday Representative Barney Frank had the guts to tell off a person who was actually likening the president to Hitler. Thank God someone has the balls to put blithering idiots in their proper place. I’m sure most carnies are more intelligent than this woman:

The second question is an interesting one. Why would people be so upset about the prospect of actually having less expensive Health Care?

I believe that in addition to all of the lies that some people are obviously believing – that people will be worse off with the addition of a public option to Health Care and the other lies pointed out above – people are fed up with the horrific state of the economy and have a general mistrust in their government. Where did this mistrust come from? It’s easy to blame it on Obama. He’s the person who is in office right now. A lot of frustrations are coming out as this is one of the first times that people have had a chance to air their views. When did the administration of the previous 8 years allow people to vent?

Mostly, it’s about our shitty economy. People are worse off now financially than they were during the Bush years, even though it was his administration that helped get us into the mess. Meanwhile, those who got rich during those years are sitting pretty with no problems affording costly insurance and just about everything else they want. Yet, as people give into fear, the rich will continue to get richer and the insurance and pharma companies will not be worrying about their bank accounts. Here’s some interesting information from a former VP at Cigna who is now dedicated to health care reform.

I would be curious to find out how many blue-dog democrats and republicans are on the payroll of Aetna or Pfizer. (This is just a blog and my opinion so I’m allowed to say that… and even make spelling errors!) But seriously. When was the last time you heard of an insurance company or a pharmaceutical company going out of business?

Why do we need pharmaceutical drug ads? Can’t our doctors make the right choices based on the “detail men” that visit them?

Here’s an exceprt from Science Daily talking about how much is spent on promotion of drugs in the U.S.:

CAM reported total promotion spending by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry as US$33.5 billion in their 2004 report, while IMS reported US$27.7 billion for the same year. The authors observed, however, important differences in figures according to each promotion category. By selectively using both sets of figures provided by IMS and CAM, in order to determine the most relevant data for each category, and adjusting for methodological differences between the ways IMS and CAM collect data, the authors arrived at US$57.5 billion for the total amount spent on pharmaceutical promotion in 2004. The industry spent approximately US$61,000 in promotion per physician during 2004, according to Gagnon. Read the full post.

My question is why does any money have to be spent on promotion of drugs? If we spent this much money on educating people on the preventative Health Care practices, we would have fewer people getting sick and in need of Health Care in the first place. I just wonder how many people could be covered by a single-payer plan by the $57.5 billion spent every year by the pharmaceutical industry?

If you don’t feel like your health-care costs are rising, maybe you’re not the only person on this planet. They are rising for a lot of people. See this link from U.S. News and World Report.

Republicans have said that they do want Health Care reform as well. What sort of reform would that be?

• They don’t want a single-payer plan (which the dems never even put on the table)
• They don’t want a public option.
• They don’t even want a co-op

What is their solution? The truth is that THEY DON’T HAVE ONE.

Their solution is the following:

• People continue to live unhealthy, over-processed, over-stuffed lives
• People to continue to spend, continue to get into dept, and continue to get sick
• People to continue to need every pill in the book and go to the doctor at any whim
• People continue to Be Sick

Why change what we already have when it’s working so well from the people who benefit the most, rich insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and republican politicians.

It is high time we do something.

• I don’t think my mother, who is 89 years old and lives on a fixed income, should have to be faced with a bill for a drug that costs $160, which is often the case.
• I don’t think that someone should be afraid to leave their job simply because they need to make sure they are covered by health insurance.
• I don’t think that people should have to choose between paying their rent and making sure they are covered by health care.

Am I willing to make sacrifices? Yes. In fact, I would be willing to pay more tax so that everyone in this country could have health care. Because I believe that a healthier country will benefit me in the long run. I think we’re all going to have to make some sort of sacrifice and that’s what will be the most difficult. America’s economic, political, and (soon) military hegemony is evaporating at the speed of light. There are other rich nations now. China has already started eating the very juicy hamburger that is America and we’ve helped them by purchasing cheap goods at Walmart created in a country whose human rights abuses we ignore. We will all be sacrificing something in the future so get used to it.

What Can You Do That’s Easy? How Can You Get Off Your Ass?

There are many ways to feel like you’ve done everything that you as a citizen in our great (yes I do think it’s great sometimes. I’m not that Un American) democracy to promote healthcare reform.

• Call Your Senators and Congressmen. It’s the blue-dog senate members that really need to be told how we feel. This will take five minutes of your time. Simply put your zip code in to get your senators’ and congressmen/women’s names and contact information unless you know it already. Find out easily here.

• Sign the Declaration of Support on the White House’s site. This will also help Congress get the message LOUD and CLEAR.

• Talk to your Neighbors. Found out easily here.

• Write a Letter to the Editor of your local newspaper. Find out easily here.

• Share your feelings of support by e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter. Find out easily here.

• Just start talking about it. Share your feeling with people and tell them that it’s important that they call their senators and congressmen even if you don’t have the time to do it yourself.

• Share this New York Times Primer on Health Care with your friends.

• Promote Setting the Record Straight, a site dedicated to exactly that.

• Share this It’s a basic FAQ from Democracy for America : http://standwithdrdean.com/faq

• Share Tim Foley’s posts here: http://healthcare.change.org/

• Become a volunteer.

• Do you live in New York or know someone who does? Download the flyer for the rally on August 29 or share this link: http://www.box.net/shared/qhvjym123h

If you can’t manage the time for any of the above, simply send a link to this blog post to someone who can or you think can. You don’t even have to leave the site. You the Share This feature below. We need to do something and it needs to be now.

Thanks!

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Friendly Fires

Another great video (and song) that Logo’s New Now Next turned me on to is the latest single “Kiss of Life” by the UK’s Friendly Fires. Their debut album (of the same name) was released in September 1 of 2008 and will be released again almost a year later on the 31st of this month. I suspect that this re-release has something to do with the fact that Friendly Fires has been nominated for a coveted Mercury Prize for their 2008 work. Friendly Fires are an English band from St. Albans, Hertfordshire and can loosely be classified as synth pop.

I remember seeing a video for one of their previous singles and not being overly excited about it but “Kiss of Life” is great. It’s the sort of song, much like the Amadou and Marium albums, that conjures up feelings of joy. At the same time, it’s sonically complex with a lot going rhythmically. There is something oddly attractive and unattractive at the same time about lead singer Ed Macfarlane in this video. I love the dancing, which has a camp/cool quality that makes me think of the way I danced in the 80′s to New Wave.

Boney M

My partner Adi and I both loved this song and video but he’s the one who recognized a song from his childhood that is very similar to Friendly Fires “Kiss of Life”. It’s the German group called Boney M who were Euro favorites mostly in the 80′s but seemed to still be (re)releasing some new music, including Felicidad America (Obama Obama) to celebrate the fact that Obama won the presidency in the U.S.

The Boney M song that Adi recognized as having a similar beat and background vocals to Friendly Fires’ “Kiss of Life” is “Gotta Go Home“, which is a Double A-side single that reached No. 12 on the UK charts and was their final No. 1 single in Germany.

Listen to both of these and see what you think. Similar enough to be a sample or just a vague similarity? I didn’t see anything else in the blogosphere written out this. Could I (or Adi) be the first to discover it?

Friendly Fires “Kiss of Life”

Boney M “Gotta Go Home”

Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

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Hoping for My Progress

I was inspired by my friend Laura Shin who put an Obamacon as her pic on her Facebook profile page. And I thought, what a great idea. Anytime I look at this, I’m reminded of the progress I’ve made and that I plan to make in the coming year. We’ve got a long ways to go as a country but I do have a strong sense of hope that we can get out of this dreadful mess that George Bush and many others got us into. You used to be able to make one at pastemagazine.com but for whatever reason, the site’s not coming up anymore. Hopefully, it’s from huge traffic.

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