Leaked document suggests health-care privatization for Alberta

Given that it's Alberta, this isn't a huge surprise:

A leaked internal document from the Alberta government shows the ruling Tories plan to privatize health care after the next provincial election, opposition parties are charging.

The 27-page internal Alberta Health and Wellness presentation suggests the provincial government has a two-part plan to delist health services, legalize new kinds of private insurance and allow doctors to provide public and private health care at the same time.

Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky denied the allegations late Monday, but exiled Conservative MLA Dr. Raj Sherman confirmed its authenticity and slammed the government's plan.

"This is basically privatizing health care," said Sherman, who was Zwozdesky's parliamentary assistant until he was ousted from the Tory caucus last week for criticizing his own government's record on health care. "My understanding is that phase two is coming after the next election, and I absolutely can't support that."

From the Calgary Herald. It would be interesting to see how much awareness the feds have of this; it sounds like Stephen Harper's wet dream.

For those in doubt about public health care...

... Canadians live longer, on average, than Americans:

When it comes to differences between Canada and the U.S., there is one area at least where we can claim bragging rights. Canadians have the edge when it comes to life expectancy and health-related quality of life.

"Canadians live longer and healthier than Americans," said U.S. health economist David Feeny, lead author of a newly published analysis of a joint Canada-U.S. population health survey.

"Mortality rates are lower in Canada and the health-related quality of life - the quality of those years - is higher in Canada than in the United States."

In fact, the analysis of the 2002-2003 data shows a 19-year-old in Canada, for instance, can expect to enjoy 2.7 years more of "perfect health" than an American the same age, said Feeny, an investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research.

While populations north and south of the border share many similarities, including standards of living, Feeny said there are two distinct potential explanations for the gap in life expectancy and quality of life: access to health care and the prevalence of poverty.

From the Telegram.

The fabric of American society frays further

It's now moved from simple vandalism to potentially life-threatening violence:

The slashing of a gas line at the home of U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello’s brother’s house was a “deliberate act of vandalism” that “could have posed a danger,” Albemarle County officials said today.

On Monday, two conservative Tea Party activists posted the home’s address on the Internet, believing it belonged to the congressman. They urged others to “drop by” the house to “express their thanks” for Perriello’s vote in favor of health care reform.

A day later, Perriello’s brother’s family smelled gas and found that someone had severed a supply hose connecting a liquid petroleum tank to burners on a portable gas grill. The grill was on a deck adjacent to a screened-in porch on the back of the house.

“Investigators believe that this was a deliberate act of vandalism and that the supply hose was intentionally cut,” a statement from Albemarle County said. “While there was no immediate threat to the residence and its occupants, investigators believe the leaking gas could have posed a danger had there been an ignition source nearby.”

The slashing of the propane line was discovered the same day that someone sent the home a “threatening” letter addressed to Rep. Perriello.

From here, via Blaque. And it seems the other side is starting to shoot back... literally:

Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 Republican in the House, said at a news conference today that someone had fired a bullet through the window of his campaign office this week.

Source, via arthur_sc_king in a comment to another Blaque post. It's only a matter of time before lives are lost, and what then? Maybe it will knock some sense into people, but it could just as easily escalate things further.

Poll suggests voters approve of Obamacare

Wonder how the teabaggers will react to this?

More Americans now favor than oppose the health care overhaul that President Obama signed into law Tuesday, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds — a notable turnaround from surveys before the vote that showed a plurality against the legislation.

By 49%-40%, those polled say it was "a good thing" rather than a bad one that Congress passed the bill. Half describe their reaction in positive terms — as "enthusiastic" or "pleased" — while about four in 10 describe it in negative ways, as "disappointed" or "angry."

The largest single group, 48%, calls the legislation "a good first step" that needs to be followed by more action. And 4% say the bill itself makes the most important changes needed in the nation's health care system.

From USA Today.

The teabaggers declare war

Check this out (h/t liz-marcs in a comment to this post on Blaque's blog):

When the law becomes a deadly tool of tyranny, it is no longer a good thing to be obedient and "law-abiding." It is, in fact, suicidal.

Yet, given the federal mandarins' willful ignorance of our very existence and conviction that we have no opinions that they are bound to respect, is there anything that can be done to prevent civil war?

Yes, there is.

We can emulate the Sons of Liberty of old.

We can break their windows.

These windows are not far away from where you are reading this right now. In virtually every city and county in this land, there is a local headquarters of Pelosi's party -- the Democrat party. These headquarters invariably have windows. When the Sons of Liberty wanted to express their opposition to the actions of the King's ministers, they would gather in front of the homes and offices of his tax-collectors and government officials in Boston or New York and break their windows. Glass was expensive. The King's minions were often the most well-to-do. The Sons of Liberty hit them in their pocketbooks.

This guy is drawing analogies to what the "Sons of Liberty" did in the days leading up to the American War of Independence, but some have pointed out that there's a more recent analogy. And people have been acting -- Blaque, in the same post linked above, has catalogued five instances of such vandalism since the vote, and that may be only the beginning. One Democratic member of Congress has had her family threatened:

The same day a brick crashed through her Niagara Falls office, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D) says her staff discovered an assassination threat aimed at her family members. The Democratic headquarters in Rochester was also targeted.

This is fricking nuts. No doubt they're trying to provoke the authorities into overreacting, so they can escalate their own activities...

David Frum sings the blues over healthcare defeat

While many Americans, not to mention most people in other developed countries, see yesterday's health care vote as a step into the modern world, the infamous (and, sadly, Canadian-born) right wing pundit David Frum sees it as a devastating blow:

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

I think he may actually be right on those two points; I just disagree with his thinking that it's a bad thing. I do wonder, though, how the teabaggers will react to defeat. I don't doubt that some of them are the sort to take The Turner Diaries seriously.

The teabaggers show their true colours

I've often used Blaque's Blog of Horrors as a source for this stuff, since being an American he's much more attuned to this stuff than I am (indeed, by the look of things it would be difficult to avoid seeing it). This weekend he (and his regular commenters) have found some dandy examples as the vote on the health care package approaches.

Exhibit A:

This is actually relatively benign as these things go, since the protesters are relatively civil there, but have a look at what happens when they try to answer simple questions about why they're there. It would be amusing if that were all there was. Unfortunately, it gets worse. Exhibit B:

The way they treated that guy is horrible. And this isn't the only example of their true colours coming to the surface, as this HuffPo story shows:

A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had been spat on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er.' And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protesters shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president's speech, shrugged off the incident.

But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

"It was absolutely shocking to me," Clyburn said, in response to a question from the Huffington Post. "Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday... I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit-ins... And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus."

Just in case you didn't already know that. And check out some of the pics in that story too (particularly the "If Brown can't stop it, Browning can" placard). These people are potentially very dangerous. A commenter on one of the YouTube videos above suggested that if Fox News told them to start killing everyone except white conservatives, a Rwanda-like massacre could result, and I don't think that's so implausible anymore. Especially considering who else is getting involved:

It’s no secret that conservatives have a hard time keeping racism out of their ranks (airwaves), and now it seems it has surfaced in even their grassroots (astro turf) movements. The whole tea party thing (except with representation and a high income bracket this time) is being organized by conservative corporate lobbyists, Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity, who are no doubt milking this all the way to their billion dollar bank accounts.

If that wasn’t hard enough for real [sic] conservative activists to swallow, they are really going to hate showing up at rallies only to rub elbows with white nationalists. Kris Kobach got the party started in Kansas on April 4th when he hosted a joint tea party/anti-immigrant rally with Billy Gilchrist, Topeka chapter leader for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. In 2004 Kansas Republican leader Timothy Burger wrote in response to Kobach’s failed congressional run, “It doesn’t help matters that Kobach was hired by FAIR, widely perceived as a racist anti-immigrant group during the campaign.” But that stinging accusation hasn’t stopped Kobach from working for the John Tanton network ever since, or from dipping his tainted toes into anything that smells ripe for manipulation and publicity.

Blaque has suggested in an earlier post on his blog that lefties (at least in the US) should start buying guns, because the righties already have them. I hate to advocate that, given how arms races generally end up, but if any First World country is headed for civil war, America is probably the prime candidate.

Interesting...

According to this article, Nancy Pelosi is saying that health care reform will continue regardless of what happens tonight in Massachusetts. Not everyone agrees, though, as evidenced by this snippet from Stockhouse.com:

U.S. investors returned to trading today in a much better mood than they finished off with last week. Today’s earnings slate helped to boost sentiment with no major negative surprises out of the banking sector, as Citigroup’s (C) TARP losses came in even with expectations, and First Horizon (FHN) reported an improvement in its loan loss provision. Industrial manufacturer Parker-Hannafin (PHN) posted strong earnings (62 cents vs. Street 34 cents) and guidance. The health care sector has also been rallying, led by Coventry Health (CVH) and Eli Lilly (LLY) ahead of a key Massachusetts senate by-election, which may have a major impact on pending health care legislation.

In other words, the potential failure of health care reform is good news in the eyes of those arseholes.

Another possible barrier to health care reform in the US

The New York Times reports that there are plans afoot to buy people's life insurance policies off them, and securitize them in the same way they've done with mortgages:

After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.

The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.

The earlier the policyholder dies, the bigger the return — though if people live longer than expected, investors could get poor returns or even lose money.

Fair enough, right? Well, besides the fact that it could be seen as kind of predatory, those planning to do this could stand to lose if, say, people start living longer:

To test how different mixes of policies would perform, Mr. Buckler has run computer simulations to show what would happen to returns if people lived significantly longer than expected.

But even with a math whiz calculating every possibility, some risks may not be apparent until after the fact. How can a computer accurately predict what would happen if health reform passed, for example, and better care for a large number of Americans meant that people generally started living longer? Or if a magic-bullet cure for all types of cancer was developed?

If the computer models were wrong, investors could lose a lot of money.

My emphasis. Think the investment banks are going to take health care reform lying down?

Hat tip to c1ue in this iTulip thread for the link.

U.K. health system hits back at ‘untruths’

Further to yesterday's post, the Brits aren't taking this lying down:

LONDON - Britain's health care service says it is sick of being lied about.

Pilloried by right-wing critics of President Barack Obama's health care plan, Britain's National Health Service, known here as the NHS, is fighting back.

"People have been saying some untruths in the States," a spokesman for Britain Department of Health said in a telephone interview. "There's been all these ridiculous claims made by the American health lobby about Obama's health care plan ... and they've used the NHS as an example. A lot of it has been untrue."

Source. Meanwhile, as pointed out by a poster here, our own government is strangely silent on all the lies and half-truths being brought forward about our system. But then, when you look at the shite that our esteemed Prime Minister spewed back when he was with the National Citizens' Coalition, it's no surprise. He's just learned not to express such opinions now that he has to answer to the public.

Health care critic says that Hawking "wouldn't have a chance" in the UK

Apparently:

From Dispatches From the Culture Wars' "Dumbass Quote of the Day" file, an anti-health-care op-ed that says that Stephen Hawking wouldn't get any health care in the UK because our "socialist" system doesn't value the lives of disabled people. As Culture Wars notes, "Stephen Hawking was born and raised in the UK and has lived there all his life. He teaches at Cambridge. That's in the UK. This ranks up there with the French not having a word for entrepreneur."

From BoingBoing. There's a link to the op-ed in question, but it's been edited to remove all reference to Hawking except this:

Editor's Note: This version corrects the original editorial which implied that physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor at the University of Cambridge, did not live in the UK.

Of course, getting caught in this particular falsehood isn't likely to change them.

Dubious accusations of violence against union activists

Perhaps you've heard of Kenneth Gladney. He's the guy who claims that those wicked union thugs beat him up for daring to oppose Obama's evil socialist agenda (you know, stuff like ensuring that everyone can get health care). Thing is, there's a video of part of the confrontation, which calls Mr. Gladney's account into question:



Via Media Matters. Note that the guy lying on the ground at the beginning is not Gladney, but an SEIU member. Note too that Gladney doesn't appear to be hurt in the video, yet according to Crooks and Liars he showed up at a press conference in a wheelchair. Now sure, it's possible that one of the SEIU activists started the confrontation (since the video doesn't catch the beginning) but there's certainly no more reason to believe this than there is to believe that Gladney started it. I suspect less, because union activists know they're not going to be cut much slack. And even if it turns out that some SEIU person did start this, it's clear that Gladney wants to milk this for all it's worth, as do his fellow conservatives. And the wheelchair stunt suggests that he's not one to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

But it falls to Blaque to point out the most delicious irony. Gladney's right wing buddies are taking up a collection, because he doesn't have health insurance! You'd think that might make them reconsider their position...