Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Texas Longhorns with newborn calf in Bluebonnets

Please note I have a new phone number...

512-517-2708

Alan Maki

Alan Maki
Doing research at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

It's time to claim our Peace Dividend

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

We need to beat swords into plowshares.

A program for real change...

http://peaceandsocialjustice.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-progressive-program-for-real-change.html


What we need is a "21st Century Full Employment Act for Peace and Prosperity" which would make it a mandatory requirement that the president and Congress attain and maintain full employment.


"Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens"

- Ben Franklin

Let's talk...

Let's talk...

Thursday, April 10, 2014

More problems for Obamacare... who is responsible for paying for the children if their parents don't?

Now there is another problem with Obamacare.

This time it is about forcing people to insure their children. The claim being made by the government is that paying for health care for children is a "parental responsibility."

The controversy arose because the Church of Scientology doesn't want to be forced to insure their children.

Senator Harry Reid wants to make accommodations for this outfit.

In my opinion, both positions prove why the ACA is a farce and nothing but a profit gouging fiasco.

We need a National Public Health Care System in this country and a movement should be started to put it on the table. With all the opposition to Obamacare it shouldn't be too difficult to initiate a movement for what we really need.

Publicly financed, publicly administered and publicly delivered health care--- based on the model of public education.

Free health care for everyone.

Paid for by cutting funds for war--- the long-promised "Peace Dividend." If that won't cover it then tax the rich.

We, as a people, could even finance it ourselves through a pay-roll tax just like with Social Security and it would still be a good deal.

Indeed, we might not have to pay anything.

Right now we pay more in medical costs  (both total and per patient) and have poorer results (percentage people covered, quality of care, infant mortality, etc.) than any other industrialized country on this planet. Looking at decades of  experience in other countries - socialist or otherwise - it is likely that transitioning to a single payer system would immediately yield better results for less cost.

Plus it would create 12 to 15 million jobs putting people to work in neighborhood and community health care centers.

Politicians and others will tell you that a National Public Health Care System is a far out radical idea the American people will never accept--- this is an outright lie.

What they really mean is the corporate lobbyists bribing them would be opposed.

How many people in this country are opposed to public education? Not many. Millions of children go to public schools every single day and this is a vote of support for public education.

A National Public Health Care System would be even more popular than public education.

Obama and the Democrats betrayed us on single-payer universal health care; in my opinion, the only way we should view single-payer anymore is that it would make a good first step in preparing the ground to make the transition to a National Public Health Care System.

While single payer payer may be a transition to a National Public Health Care System, what should be clear is the Affordable Care Act is not a transition to anything; but, rather, a huge step backward with the poor, the working class and the middle class with this government program enriching insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

But the transition period from single-payer universal health care to a National Public Health Care system should be of very short duration so we don't get stuck with a bunch of problems like those now hobbling sections of the Canadian Health Care system.

Everything should be covered from pre-natal to burial: general medical, eyes (including glasses), ears (including hearing aids) and mental health.

Keep in mind, Canadians led by Tommy Douglas and Dr. Norman Bethune had their hearts and their minds set on socialized health care; it was a thoroughly reactionary party which bent to the will of the people in bringing forward this Canadian Health Act as a compromise--- Tommy Douglas didn't set out to settle for this compromise and he insisted to his dying day that nothing short of socialized health care would solve the problems of Canadians... and nothing short of a National Public Health Care Program is ever going to solve all of our problems with health care as this newsletter lays out the problems being encountered. As we all know there are a myriad of problems with Obamacare and lots more to come. There is nothing fair about it; it is one big scam to transfer wealth from the working class to the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

We have been jerked around by these worthless Democrats on both health care reform and the Minimum Wage.

Working class families are experiencing a "cost-of-living crisis" and this health care mess only exacerbates and intensifies this "cost-of-living crisis."

I wouldn't expect politicians and the well-heeled to understand how this health care mess is related to the "cost-of-living crisis;" these people who can afford everything have never had any empathy or sympathy for working class families who they arrogantly keep referring to as "middle class" as if most working people are in some kind of "middle income bracket" far removed from poverty when the situation is such that the majority of working class families live on the very edge of poverty, one or two checks away from poverty--- and I don't call this "middle income" or "middle class"... in fact, just one hospital stay away from poverty--- with or without Obamacare.

I have not heard one single politician explain how Obamacare has created one more cost-of-living problem for working class families but good old Harry Reid who finds it more lucrative to pimp for Wall Street than his hookers will look for a gimmick to satisfy the Church of Scientology which is nothing but one big racket that attracts a bunch of dingy Hollywood celebrities while the working class foots the bill.

More coverage?

Better results?

Let us use old fashioned conservative principles and get more bang for our buck with single payer transitioning to a National Public Health Care System.

As far as "children's health care being a legal duty of the parents?" I say, "bullshit."

This is the government's responsibility to provide health care for children... and everyone else.

Any country that can afford trillions for war after dirty war can afford to provide health care for its own people--- especially health care for children.

And I think it is a dirty shame that those pushing for single-payer are as dirty and devious in keeping the proponents of a National Public Health Care System out of these discussions and debates just like Obama and the Democrats silenced their own voices.

There isn't one single politician in Congress (the House or Senate) who can be trusted to stand up to Wall Street when it comes to health care reform, making the Minimum Wage a real living wage or when it comes to the most important issue of all: peace. This is just plain out pathetic that the majority of the people, workers who create the wealth, have no voice in Congress.

What happened to, "We, the People?"

Alan L. Maki
Director of Organizing,
Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

58891 County Road 13
Warroad, Minnesota 56763

Phone: 218-386-2432
Cell: 651-587-5541

Primary E-mail: amaki000@centurytel.net
E-mail: alan.maki1951mn@gmail.com

Blog: http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/