Suggested Discussion Outline - Aug 2d

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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Suggested Discussion Outline - Aug 2d

Post by johnkarls »

Suggested Discussion Outline
Reading Liberally Bulletin Board = http://www.drinkingliberallyslc.org/reading


A. Michael Moore’s Sicko

A-1. Health insurance unavailability – disqualification factors & pre-existing conditions
A-2. Retroactively voiding policy after claim is submitted due to inaccuracy/omission on original insurance application
A-3. Health insurance industry staff incentives (bonus, raise, promotion, etc.) based in claim-disallowance rate regardless of merits
A-4. U.S. is the only industrialized country of the top 25 industrialized countries NOT to have universal health care – various interviews/vignettes relating to Canada-U.K.-France
A-5. U.K. physician incentives based on health (vs. care denial)
A-5-A. U.K. Fat Tax Proposal before Parliament (please see Reading Liberally Bulletin Board for details)
A-6. Taking “Ground Zero” workers with health problems to Guantanamo Bay – U.S. Detention Center for Al Qaida to attempt to obtain the same medical treatment that Al Qaida receives – upon rejection, obtaining treatment in Havana, Cuba

A-General. Please also refer to Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis and The People Who Pay the Price, Jonathan Cohn (HarperCollins 2007) which was suggested by Reading Liberally participant Shelly Poole – The NY Times Book Review of this book is posted on the Reading Liberally Bulletin Board)

B. The Democratic Presidential Candidates’ Positions

B-1. Clinton/Obama/Edwards
B-2. Dennis Kucinich’s HR 676 – endorsed by Michael Moore (both the bill and the candidate)
B-2-A. RL Participant Bill Lee’s Summary of H.R. 676 = 2d following page (Bill’s summary was also posted on the Reading Liberally Bulletin Board)

C. News Articles Opposing Universal Health Care

C-1. Typically based on alleged inadequacies in other countries that have UHC
C-2. Irrelevant because any inadequacies are a function of how much the U.S. is willing to spend to eliminate any inadequacies (rather than slavishly following the recipe of a particular foreign country)
C-3. The key concept is whether one is in favor of extending, in effect, Medicare to all citizens (and, if there are any inadequacies in Medicare, whether to spend the additional money to eliminate them)

D. Utah State Action (this portion of the discussion to be lead by Utah Health Policy Project Executive Director Judi Hilman – a friend of Reading Liberally participant Ellen Birrell)

D-1. The Utah Health Cooperative (universal health care at the Utah state level)
D-2. CHIP (universal health care for poor children – state programs financed with 4:1 federal matching funds (the federal matching-fund program will expire September 30 unless extended – Pres. Bush is threatening a veto if it is enlarged while 43 state governors and veto-proof bi-partisan majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives favor major expansion))

Please see Reading Liberally participant Bill Lee’s comments on the desirability, if feasible, of achieving universal health care at the federal level rather than at the level of 50 states, and his comments on CHIP – Bill’s comments are posted on the Reading Liberally Bulletin Board

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