Who Killed Single Payer?

Senator Sanders (I-Vermont) secretly inserts ACTUAL single payer provision in the health reform bill

MeanMesa notices something "just under the horizon" which might present a true nightmare for the "we hate America" neo-con crowd in 2010.


Now, granted, the GOP has "modernized" its traditional (medieval) domestic policy ideology just a smidgeon in its ongoing efforts to break free from the on going train wreck. The old paradigm was an awkward extraction from the Book of Genesis which was used to "prove" that man kind was created in the first place to lower taxes. The new adjustment? That old single track fraud is now accompanied by a new, probably also Biblical, commitment to deny health care to poor people.


After all, how else could the neo-cons "keep" all of their "hard earned money?" Among the neo-con horde, there are those who have been "fooled" into thinking that they are rich. With wages utterly stagnant amid constantly rising costs of living for decades, -- since Ronnie Rayguns exploded middle class taxes in the '80's -- the grotesquely rich have depended on a barrage of talking points (issues of ideology simplified so much that hill billies and bigots are attracted to them) to convince even the most "credit challenged" that a.) they are actually rich, and b.) that their "riches" are being purloined relentlessly by sinister socialist schemes cooked up by Democrats.


Of course, such a menu of "day-old cat food" can only be sold to the seriously uninformed. Should any of the neo-con "cannon fodder" class actually investigate what has actually been going on, they would most likely be a little less manageable. In fact, probably a lot less manageable. Should they ever become informed -- as opposed to uninformed -- these stalwart, hypnotized "grass roots" neo-cons would probably redefine themselves as something more akin to starving Bolshevik riot mobs from Moscow's 1900's.


Well, if you are a billionaire, you would have not wasted much of your "cabana martini" time worrying about this unpleasant possibility. You've done the elitist version of due diligence. You've purchased the media. You've seen to it that folks such as Rush Limbaugh -- you know, folks who can speak good old American plain English to your carefully groomed base -- recklessly reframe the daily news to reinforce you oligarchic wet dreams day after monotonous day. So what could be a problem?


Between your comb-over troop of dirty shirt preachers, Southern Senators and drug addled talk show hosts, these dumbies remain amazingly eager to stand around in "grass roots" tea parties acting stupid. ("Okay Billy Bob, jest carry thu sign an' act mad. An y'all 'member -- NO INTERVIEWS! Them liberral's gonna trah t' trick you inta' lookin' lahk yew cain't 'splain nuthin. Beers on me when we git dun!")

The Fly in the (Billionaire) Ointment

Enter Senator Sanders. Unlike far too many of the "Democratic" Senators who have toughed out the entire health care "debate" hiding under their desks in hushed cell phone calls to their PCCC's (pharmaceutical corporation campaign contributors), Senator Sanders actually threw down the gauntlet. He inserted an amendment to the otherwise agonizingly "half-inflated balloon boy" Senate bill which would direct $10 billion dollars to the construction of regional health centers all around the nation.


Now, MeanMesa visitors, this is not to be confused with the brazen Senate "buy-off's" such as , for example, the $300 million slipped to Ben Nelson ("D?" - Nebraska) so his state would never have to pay its part of Medicaid bills or the dough -- this time $100 million -- Mary Landrieu ("D?" - Louisiana) got for casting her vote in favor of the bill. Those million dollar checks were what is called "state specific." That means that all those dollars would be spent only by the states which successfully, uh, extorted them out of the national treasury.


Anyone living anywhere else besides Nebraska or Louisiana gets nothing -- except the bill to pay for these bribes, of course.


Not so with the Sanders amendment. Not so at all! His regional health centers will be just that -- regional! That means that they will be built all over the country, providing subsidized health care -- especially preventative medicine -- to literally millions of Americans who need it. That means that there might probably be a new regional health center in your neighborhood!


Naturally, the old white men in the GOP immediately tried to torpedo his idea. "Wha' this here's nothin' else but SOCIALISM! Ef us rich whaht folk gotta' pay fer somethin' lahk this, why, our chillen' gonna' be slaves to the government! This here's so 'spensive thet there's gonna' be nuthin' but debt fo mah granchillen!"

Right.

Now let's look at the money for a minute.


Sanders plan calls for 10,000 regional centers. When we divide $10 billion dollars by 10,000 regional centers we get -- ah, subtract seven from four, carry the two -- $1 million dollars per health center. Remember, these aren't hospitals! These are nice, sensible, regional health centers providing nice, sensible local health care and preventative medicine. A million dollars per copy seems pretty reasonable. (The price tag on the whole health reform bill is around $900 billion.)


So far, so good. But what about the "debt slavery" Senator McChinless is worried about for his grandchildren?


Maybe this is a good place for some MeanMesa perspective. Senator McChinless and his penny pinching conservative crime friends had no problem whatsoever pumping literally trillions of dollars into the W's oil war in Iraq.

$10 billion is 1% of a single one of those Iraqi trillions. The United States is currently spending $3 billion per week to sustain our military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, after a little higher mathematics, the question becomes quite understandable -- even for the information challenged. Would you rather have a regional health care center or another three weeks of war in Iraq and Afghanistan?

MeanMesa's compliments to Senator Sanders.

About 2009 war costs ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/07/terror/main4704018.shtml

About Ben Nelson's "vote money" ...
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/12/21/who-s-really-to-blame-for-ben-nelson-s-medicaid-buy-off.aspx

About Mary Landrieu's "vote money" ...
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/11/the-100-million-health-care-vote.html