Experts are always the last to know

the group was surprised at the magnitude of the gap.

Potter on DN

With regards to single payer, I think the President made a big blunder. I think he should have said, when he was inaugurated or soon—as soon as this debate began, that—you know, let’s look at what would be the best solution for this country. And why not consider a single-payer system? Let’s have that debate in Congress. It may not wind up that that is what this Congress enacts, but that debate should have happened. It will happen ultimately. And I think these protests are an important thing in our country.

I think it will eventually take a social movement to get the kind of healthcare that we need in this country—healthcare reform.

Wendell Potter, former top executive at CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest for-profit health insurance companies. Up until last year, Wendell Potter served as head of corporate communications at CIGNA and as CIGNA’s chief corporate spokesperson. He also once headed communications at Humana, another large for-profit health insurer. Wendell Potter is now a fellow at the Center for Media and Democracy and has become one of the industry’s most prominent whistleblowers.

Healthcare in nations that don't perpetrate fraud upon their citizens

If you're a Native American or a veteran you live in Britain. They get government health care and government hospitals from government doctors and they never get a bill.

If you're an employed person sharing your health insurance premium with your employer, you live in Germany. That's the Bismarck model that was invented in Germany and used in many countries.

If you're a senior and you buy Medicare insurance from the government and go to private doctors, you live in Canada. That's the Canadian model. As a matter of fact, the Canadian health care system is called Medicare, and when Lyndon Johnson provided it for our seniors in 1965 he borrowed both the model and the name from Canada.

And if you're one of the tens of millions of Americans who can't get health insurance, well, you live in Malawi or Madagascar or Mali or something...

A clarifying look at healthcare systems.

Get the short version here (NPR interview) or here (transcript of same).

Also: 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World

add: Another Interview with Reid: Sick Around the World

"This is a brutal system..."

strange beasts file

My dry cleaner uses a more elaborate system to track shirts than this hospital used to track treatment. via raving lunacy

Evil Sprites from the North, eh?

NAOMI KLEIN: You know, I just would just add, you know, that clip that you played earlier of Obama saying, you know, we’re not starting from scratch—true, no country is ever starting from scratch. But when you look at the way all of these various crises are interrelated, the healthcare crisis with the financial sector crisis with the manufacturing sector crisis, you could not imagine a moment when there—which was more ripe for possibility of actually stepping back and going, “This whole thing is broken; how do we rebuild this in a way that makes sense?” There’s not going to be another moment like this, Amy, you know?

AMY GOODMAN: And that’s interesting that they’re not questioning nationalizing the debt of—and bailing out these banks and these other companies, like AIG, but they question nationalizing the cost of healthcare, which involves everyone.

NAOMI KLEIN: Yes, that this—they agree with the Republicans: that would be socialism. So, yes, it’s true. Avi and I are from a socialist—the socialist country of Canada, would that it were so.

Fire the Boss - DN.

Distributed realtime Sicko

In Sicko Moore says he put a note requesting stories of encounters with US healthcare, and received over 25,000 stories within a week.

My name is Eugenio Tisselli, and I am the developer behind zexe.net (http://www.zexe.net), a project in which specific urban collectives broadcast their daily experiences from mobile phones directly to the web. These collectives have included so far people on wheelchairs in Barcelona mapping the architecural barriers in the city, and motorcycle messengers (motoboys) in Sao Paulo, Brazil, among others.

From my point of view, small collectives engaged in communicative processes which are mediated by digital technology seek not only to represent themselves as a social entity, but also to make visible the invisible: the day to day issues that they encounter in their cities, which are particular to them and many times constitute problems or specific issues that affect their urban life. This process of visibilization is intended to have an effect not only on the general public, but also on the local government. IDC list

So...

not news at 11

For all our alleged "communities" -- orkuts, mySpaceyfacebeaks, freundsters, flackrs -- this seems not yet covered: What if everyone facing a health crisis, an overcrowded ER, a Kaiser cab ride to the Permanente Dumpster, were equipped with a cell and a site to break some news of the USian inhuman condition in real time?

What if people were making their healthcare events visible right now? On a public server. It could be called 911.