Some laudable elements are in various versions of the bills, especially expanding Medicaid, cutting the private insurance-padding waste of Medicare Advantage, and limiting the ability of the insurance giants to ban and dump people who have been or who ever will be sick.

But, overall, the leading bills and the Presidents proposal are, like the dog that didnt bark, more notable for what is missing.

Michael Moore | HuffPost

Just before the Senate Finance Committee wrapped up for the long weekend, members debated one of Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) amendments, which would strike language defining which benefits employers are required to cover.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) argued that insurers must be required to cover basic maternity care. (In several states there are no such requirements.)

“I don’t need maternity care,” Kyl said. “So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”

Stabenow interrupted: “I think your mom probably did.”

This little slice of Senate life goes right to the heart of America’s healthcare crisis.

Extensive maternity care for all — from family planning through delivery — is an essential proponent of any sensible healthcare system. Nations with universal coverage typically include generous maternity leave prior to and after birth, providing the new parents with several layers of support.

The benefits to the parents are obvious: they receive all the care they need and they are able to spend time with their new baby, away from work, and without having to worry about money.

The benefits to society are just as important: expectant mothers who do not receive essential care have poorer outcomes, in part because of the missing care, and in part because of the disabling force of financial stress. A society peopled by a significant percentage of “poorer outcomes” suffers a range of ill effects, including unhealthy citizens who need far more medical care/spending than was “saved” by scrimping on maternity care.

Most everywhere but America they’ve figured this out and have better medical outcomes while spending less money.

Mr. Kyl and his buddies call this socialized medicine, a pronouncement that can stop all rational thought and serious discussion in America. They prefer instead the practice of Anti-Social Medicine, where everybody is on their own, where nobody should have to care about anyone beyond their own family, and where sickness profiteers make everything so expensive that only the rich get decent care.

Senator Stabenow’s reply did not go far enough: we shouldn’t insist on full and generous maternity benefits in all coverage plans because our mothers, wives, and daughters might need it, but because when we do not extend equal care to every newborn we violate the principles that inspired America — all are created equal and are equally endowed….

Michael Sky | Thinking Peace

We are dying a slow death of poison-by-status-quo. The way America has been doing things — financially, militarily, medically, and environmentally — is not only not working, in each area our actions are so unsustainable that continuing on the same path can only lead to massive chaos and human suffering.

In each of these areas, Obama came with a sense that he definitely got it and was prepared to usher in monumental change. Financially and militarily he has been, at best, a continuation of Bush. Bankers are still getting richer while the rest of us get poorer, and we’re still dropping bombs on Iraqi and Afghani civilians in pursuit of policies that benefit no one but military contractors.

Environmentally, he has been better than Bush, barely. But mostly he’s still defending status quo industries like coal and automobiles when, again, what the planet needs is monumental change.

Healthcare “reform” has been the hardest to watch. When we discount the people’s voice right from the outset — strong majorities of patients and doctors favor a single payer system — it’s a clear sign that the status quo is ruling the day.

The unsustainable status quo in American healthcare is insurance and pharmaceutical industry profits, including shareholder dividends. That is the main reason American healthcare costs too much. It is unconscionable to have a great nation brought to ruin, and for its people to needlessly suffer, so that a small overfed elite can make money.

That’s what Obama needs to say. When they scream “Socialism” he has to say “Yes, when it comes to healthcare, that is the best way.” He has to unequivocally remove the profit motive from American medicine.

If he fails, then the status quo rules, and a once great nation continues its downward spiral.

Michael Sky | Thinking Peace

Crop yields, under the onslaught of changing weather patterns and chemical pollution, are declining in the Northeast, where a blight has nearly wiped out the tomato crop. The draconian Food Modernization Safety Act, another gift from our governing elite to corporations, means small farms will only continue to dwindle in number.

Chris Hedges | CommonDreams.org

By no stretch of the imagination does mainstream American “health care” move us closer to this vision of robust, resilient health. It is a fiscally unsustainable, technology-centric, symptom-focused disease-management system. Consider that two-thirds of all Americans die from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes, which are all strongly associated with lifestyle choices. Maintaining and paying for our current system will serve only to continue – if not exacerbate – this trend, and bankrupt the nation in the process.

Dr. Andrew Weil | HuffPost.

“Health insurance is not a race to the top; it is a race to the bottom,” he told me from Cambridge, Mass. “The way you make money is by abusing people. And if a public-option plan is not ready and willing to abuse patients it is stuck with the expensive patients. The premiums will go up until it is noncompetitive. The conditions that have now been set for the plans include a hobbled public option. Under the best-case scenario there will be tens of millions [who] will remain uninsured at the outset, and the number will climb as more and more people are priced out of the insurance market.”

Chris Hedges | CommonDreams.org

Nearly every other advanced country has a largely nonprofit national health system that guarantees universal care. Even countries with private insurers, like Switzerland and the Netherlands, require uniform prices and benefits and limit profits. Not only are expenditures much lower in other advanced countries, but health outcomes are generally better. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, they offer on average more basic services, not fewer — more doctor visits and longer hospital stays, and they have more doctors and nurses and hospital beds. But they don’t do nearly as many tests and procedures, because there is little financial incentive to do so.

Marcia Angell, M. D. | HuffPost

In many ways, foreign health-care models are not really “foreign” to America, because our crazy-quilt health-care system uses elements of all of them. For Native Americans or veterans, we’re Britain: The government provides health care, funding it through general taxes, and patients get no bills. For people who get insurance through their jobs, we’re Germany: Premiums are split between workers and employers, and private insurance plans pay private doctors and hospitals. For people over 65, we’re Canada: Everyone pays premiums for an insurance plan run by the government, and the public plan pays private doctors and hospitals according to a set fee schedule. And for the tens of millions without insurance coverage, we’re Burundi or Burma: In the world’s poor nations, sick people pay out of pocket for medical care; those who can’t pay stay sick or die.

T.R. Reid | CommonDreams