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Galindez writes: "'Medicare for All' is picking up steam throughout the country. In Iowa, a health care crisis is looming. No insurance companies plan to offer coverage on the exchange in 2018, and the three current providers have announced they are pulling out of the state."

Rally for Medicare for All. (photo: AP)
Rally for Medicare for All. (photo: AP)


Momentum for Single Payer Reaches Iowa

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

19 May 17

 

edicare for All� is picking up steam throughout the country. In Iowa, a health care crisis is looming. No insurance companies plan to offer coverage on the exchange in 2018, and the three current providers have announced they are pulling out of the state.

Activists in Iowa are concerned about the GOP move to repeal Obamacare and will resist those efforts, but don�t see Obamacare as a long-term solution to our country�s health care needs.

According to Physicians for a National Health Program: �The reason we spend more and get less than the rest of the world is that we have a patchwork system of for-profit payers. Private insurers necessarily waste health dollars on things that have nothing to do with care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales, and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay. Doctors and hospitals must maintain costly administrative staffs to deal with the bureaucracy. As a result, administration consumes one-third (31 percent) of Americans� health dollars, most of which is a waste.�

I completely agree with them on that. My story shows the problem with the current system. I need a kidney. I currently can�t get on the kidney transplant list because my insurance won�t cover the operation. It did last year, but without notice, Aetna will not cover it this year. I can get on Medicare early but would need a supplemental to cover a transplant. I may be able to get additional coverage before the enrollment period, but if not I have to wait until January to get on the transplant list. Dialysis will keep me going until I get on the list, but if we had universal coverage like most of the world, I wouldn�t have to wait. I am working, I have insurance, and the system still fails me. TrumpCare would even be worse.

Insurance companies are only middlemen, and they profit without providing anything that couldn�t be provided cheaper and more efficiently by the government. This is already happening in the form of Medicare and Medicaid, but some doctors don�t accept them because they don't pay as much as private insurers pay. What we need to keep costs down is a single payer system that doesn�t have a profit motive or a marketing budget to raise.

Single payer is the ultimate goal; I think the path to single payer is a public option. Here in Iowa, there will be a need for a public option if no private insurers come in. The government will have to provide an opportunity to Iowans, or the hospitals will be full of people with no insurance.

I agree with Republicans who say a public option is a back door to single payer. Insurance companies will not be able to compete, and that is a good thing. Many single payer advocates oppose a public option, fearing it would set up a system where the elderly and sick end up in the public system and the healthy stay on private insurance. The only way that would happen is if private insurers offered coverage that was competitive with the public option. While not ideal, that would still be an improvement over what we have now.

As Bernie Sanders has always said: �Health care must be recognized as a right, not a privilege. Every man, woman, and child in our country should be able to access the health care they need regardless of their income. The only long-term solution to America�s health care crisis is a single-payer national health care program.�

This weekend�s events will happen throughout Iowa, calling for �Medicare for All!� The events will serve as a launch for Our Revolution in Iowa. Speakers will include candidates for Congress in Iowa who supported Bernie Sanders in 2016, including Pete D�Alessandro, who was the Iowa director for Bernie�s 2016 presidential campaign.

Events will take place at the following times and locations:

May 20th at noon
Waterloo / Public Library, 415 Commercial St.
Sponsors:
Our Revolution Iowa
Americans for Democratic Action Iowa

May 20th at noon
Cedar Rapids / Greene Square Park, 5th St. SE
Sponsor:
Our Revolution Cedar Rapids

May 20th at 4 p.m.
Des Moines / Neil Smith Federal Building, 210 Walnut St.
Sponsors:
Our Revolution Central Iowa
Our Revolution Story County Iowa
Central Iowa Democratic Socialists of America

May 20th at 4 p.m.
Sioux City / Rep. Steve King�s office, 526 Nebraska St.
Sponsor:
Northwest Iowa for Our Revolution

May 20th at 4 p.m.
Iowa City / Iowa City Pedestrian Mall, 201 Dubuque St.
Sponsors:
Our Revolution � Johnson County
Iowa City Democratic Socialists of America

May 21st at noon
Dubuque / Town Clock Plaza, 890 Main St.
Sponsors:
Our Revolution: Dubuque
Americans for Democratic Action Iowa
Dubuque Democratic Socialists

May 20th at 1PM
East Davenport, Village Theater, 2113 E 11th St
Sponsored by Our Revolution Scott County



Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott moved to Des Moines in 2015 to cover the Iowa Caucus.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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+20 # WBoardman 2015-11-24 13:38
Brilliant during Viet-Nam (eventually),
the New Yorker is still so far behind the curve
of the second decade of the Bremer Brigade's
reckless predation that it's all but invisible in
smooth cosmopolitan pieces like this where,
compared to their subjects they do nothing.

David Remnick surely knows all this and much more,
so why is the New Yorker as flat as it has been since 9/11?
 
 
+17 # RMDC 2015-11-24 13:43
Yes, I agree. It would be nice if the New Yorker actually told the truth about ISIS and Raqqa. But it won't. I'm sure David Remnick does not know the truth. He's never had much of interest to say.

This is journalism as fashion. Just say what is the latest style. As we know by the logic of fashion, its truth changes very rapidly.
 
 
+50 # Farafalla 2015-11-24 18:53
The references to "extreme" interpretations of Islam and "fanatical" zeal leave out the fact that everything ISIS does was learned in Saudi Arabia. The fanatical extemism is Sunni Wahhabism. It is practiced in all the reactionary oil states of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. These are our big allies against Iran and Shiites.

I'm sure the Saudis are thrilled that their boys are doing God's work. It's also interesting that Saudi Arabia takes no refugees from Syria.
 
 
+25 # sinaj 2015-11-24 18:53
How can people regard this brave young man and others who remain behind telling the truth be regarded as terrorists by the stupid republicans they are total idiots or yet even worse Nazis
 
 
+14 # Shades of gray matter 2015-11-24 19:28
ISIS is probably a combination of Salafi religious nuts, Saddam old guard, rootless young men with few options (trying to "prove" themselves savage enough) and opportunists, seeking the spoils of war, including blood letting and sex slaves. The Wahhabi and Taliban were bad enough. This combination may well be far worse. Frankensteins are a bitch, no? The CIA is so effective on our behalf, no? Our shadow government is actually our greatest enemy, truly, truly, evil. We must weaken them here at home. Start by rejecting lies, false patriotism? Speak up? This weekend?
 
 
+17 # MDSolomon 2015-11-24 19:46
No mention that the CIA created Al Qaeda and ISIS as excuses to bring down a list of countries that General Wesley Clark says were on a list handed the Pentagon after 9-11.

All of these nations (including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, etc.) had/have their own central banks and controlled/cont rol their own currency.

In addition, Syria is a key part of the path for cartel oil to be delivered to Europe, to counter the Russian monopoly.

The false flag in Paris, which resulted in France declaring war which they did not do after 9-ll, and which invokes certain aspects of the NATO treaty, along with Turkey's attack on a Russian jet, makes it clear that the cartel is trying to find a plausible way to keep the Russians from destroying their mercenaries, ISIS and "the Syrian opposition."

As soon as the Russian blow up the weapons that the U.S. and NATO have been supplying their mercenaries, more weapons are dropped.

http://coloradopublicbanking.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-view-from-top-of-power-pyramid.html
 
 
+27 # PABLO DIABLO 2015-11-24 19:48
Our "allies" Saudi Arabia and Israel supply ISIS with weapons. Gotta keep the war machine well fed so it can continue to buy politicians. No more Clintons. No more Bushs.
 
 
+4 # Capn Canard 2015-11-25 06:49
And plenty of chatter that suggests that ISIS appeared fully formed like Athena from the head of the godhead of American power, presumably the biggest of American powers, the International banksters et al. From my view, this ISIS, "ISIL-IS-Daesh" came out of nowhere, and that stinks of deep deception/manip ulation and very nefarious events yet to come. Like Orwell's "1984" it looks like a constant and never ending war with Oceania.

As an addendum, I will post Aaron Russo revealing what he says Nickolaus Rockefellar told him about one year before 9/11/2001 re an event, terrorism, RFID chips, and banking. Re interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gwcQjDhZtI
 
 
+17 # golferdawn 2015-11-24 20:23
@Pablo Diablo - the USA has been giving or selling arms to Middle East countries for as long as I have followed politics. Don't for get the Reagan and the Iran Contra deal, arms to countries for more access to oil. Our greed has led to most of the corruption. The unwarranted war run by Cheney and Rumsfeld created ISIS and we will be paying for that for some time, it appears.
 
 
+10 # Capn Canard 2015-11-25 07:05
I would point out that it isn't your greed, or my greed, it is the greed of those who are already very wealthy and hence extremely powerful. It isn't money and wealth that they want, it is complete power and control over most ever aspect of our lives. We have become little more than slaves...
 
 
+5 # MidwestTom 2015-11-24 21:41
The best article I have found on ISIS is in the Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

A little long, but necessary for all of the background.
 
 
+8 # Radscal 2015-11-25 01:23
 
 
-2 # Charles3000 2015-11-25 10:18
Whenever a country is invaded, occupied and a puppet govt set up as was done in Iraq, a band of "patriots" will form and fight to restore the general type of govt that existed prior to the occupation. ISIS/ISIL is essentially the Iraqi patriot army.
 
 
+2 # ronjazz 2015-11-25 17:07
Quoting Charles3000:
Whenever a country is invaded, occupied and a puppet govt set up as was done in Iraq, a band of "patriots" will form and fight to restore the general type of govt that existed prior to the occupation. ISIS/ISIL is essentially the Iraqi patriot army.


No, it isn't, it is actually a mercenary arm of the oil companies and international banks. They are not fighting to restore the Iraq government, in any way, shape or form.
 

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