Two-hundred and fifty people gathered on the steps of the Colorado Capitol Saturday, May 30 as part of a "National Day of Action" to advocate for a single-payer model of health care reform. People came from Colorado Springs, Buena Vista and Ft. Collins as well as metro Denver to share stories and data about the utter failure of U.S. health care, which has become a profit-center for multi-payer insurances and hospitals at the expense of health care access for the people of Colorado.

Roya, a rally organizer from Health Care for All Colorado, related the story of a friend, repeatedly denied health care due to a "pre-existing" condition of cancer, until she died. Mike, a leader of ArapaHope Community Team, another rally organizer, told of continuous denial of health care coverage since he had a mild heart attack 14 years ago.

Fort Collins physician, Dr. Cory Carroll expressed the frustration of primary care providers whose care for patients is often complicated or obstructed by for-profit private insurances that assume the right to deny or delay claims.

Sen. Morgan Carroll observed that insurance companies make their profit by over-charging premiums, which rose 98% from 2000-2007, and by denying necessary health care. In Colorado, unlicensed and unqualified insurance industry folks deny necessary medical treatment. Asking "Where are our priorities?" Sen. Carroll noted that we have spent billions more on wall street bailouts than it would cost to provide health care to every single American for decades. Read more of Sen. Carroll's remarks.

Single-Payer has been declared "off the table" by Sen. Baucus and others in Washington. When Gov. Howard Dean visited Denver last week to promote a parallel public health care option, he drew gasps from his progressive audience when he suggested that Medicare Part D was "good" reform --perhaps a mark of the insularity of Washington culture, and a disconnect  on the part of some of our leaders.

Rep. John Kefalas has done a stellar job of shepherding the Colorado Guaranteed Health Care Act (HB 1273) through two committees - Business Affairs & Labor and Appropriations - and a second reading in the House. The bill is scheduled for 3rd reading and final vote in the House on Monday, April 13, where it now has 32 votes. One more vote is needed or it will die.

Six Democrats have yet to indicate they will vote affirmatively.

Please call and email each of the following representatives before 9 a.m. on Monday morning.

Speaker Terrence Carroll 303-866-2909 terrance.carroll.house@state.co.us

Rep. Kathleen Curry 303-866-2945 kathleencurry@montrose.net

Rep. Wesley McKinley 303-866-2398 mckinley@cowboywes.com

Rep. Karen Middleton 303-866-3911 karen@karenmiddleton.com

Rep. Jim Riesberg 303-866-2929 jim.riesberg.house@state.co.us

Rep. Christine Scanlan 303-866-2952 christine.scanlan.house@state.co.us


The Board of Directors of the Health District of Northern Larimer County wrote a 6-page objective analysis of HB 1273, and voted unaminously to endorse the bill - one of more than 60 group endorsers. Read their Analysis.

The Northern Colorado Business Report, which has remained out in front in reporting on health care reform, on March 13 printed an editorial endorsement of HB 1273. Read their Endorsement.

Opponents of HB 1273 have predictably focused on "free market" arguments invoking "competition" and "choice", though, honestly, people want a choice of health care providers, not minimum-benefit insurances that leave them at risk. Rep. Kefalas has consistently maintained that to move to a quality-centered health care system, competition should occur among providers, not among for-profit insurances. Kefalas rightly notes that we need a new health care paradigm that also permits greater transparency in order to facilitate determination of best practices and health care outcomes. Currently, thousands of different insurers each maintain secrecy around their own proprietary data.

One of the oft-used arguments to foreclose debate of HB 1273 - used by Republicans and by the governor’s office - has been the notion that the 208 Commission studied the single payer proposal in depth and rejected it. Nevertheless, we who were present at most of the 208 Commission meetings witnessed the almost immediate dismissal of any consideration of the Single Payer model. There was true disbelief expressed by Commission Chair Bill Lindsay (among others) - "That can’t be!" - when the Lewin Group reported the cost savings of single payer. It was the only one of 5 proposals that showed cost savings for providers, businesses, families, hospitals, and a net savings for the state of $1.4 billion, as well as the ability to provide comprehensive coverage for all.

There was never any attempt by the Commission to follow up with study of  the Single Payer model - rather, they dismissed it in 4 cursory sentences in their Final Report to the legislature, calling it "politically unfeasible." The Commission devoted most of their time to writing their own proposal of incremental reforms based on the Massachusetts model of a mandate for private insurances.

So, debate around the Single Payer model has been consistently short-circuited at all levels, with an effective media blackout among the large Denver-area print media. It bears repeating that throughout the 208 Commission process, the Denver Post and The Rocky Mountain News rejected pieces related to the Single Payer model, preferring instead pieces by "free-market" advocates. The business editor of the News informed me that he did not want "to confuse his readers" with information about single payer. By comparision, the Ft. Collins and Pueblo newspapers excelled at presenting pros and cons of all aspects of the health care reform debate.

We have yet to have a thorough honest debate of the Single Payer model of health care that has not been distorted by opponents’ framing, too often with capitulation from some of our Democratic leaders. As recently as April 7 when Rep. Diana DeGette gave her signature health care reform speech before the City Club of Denver, she conceded the issue by using opponents’ framing of health care reform. Promising "strong doctor-patient relationships - free from government interference...," DeGette disregarded the fact that only a single-payer model offers full choice of providers; nor did she mention the $20 billion annual interference of private insurance plans that daily breach patient-doctor relationships, gaming the system using "Denial Management" to deny, delay and renege on insurance claims. "...let there be no doubt: ‘socialized medicine’ is not coming to America," promised DeGette. Again, our Democratic leaders too often fail to define issues and inform people, but rather fall into the trap of letting Republicans and corporate interests define the terms of every debate.

For the first time since Rep. Kefalas introduced the Colorado Guaranteed Health Care Act (HB 1273) this legislative session, on Monday April 6 there was a relatively brief (1-1/2 hour) window for debate about the issue of single payer on the House floor. It was a powerful experience to witness  Democrats stepping up to present the case for a sytemic health care reform, countering the specious arguments presented by the opposition. I will summarize the April 6 HB 1273 House floor debate in a subsequent post.

The East Denver Neighborhood Volunteers for Change is excited to bring together three experienced and knowledgeable speakers to discuss Residential Alternative Energy. If you've ever considered the possibility of adding solar panels to your home or helping others in your community to do so, then you'll want to attend this event.

• Date: Saturday, May 2nd, 2009


• Time: 3pm


• Location: Greater Park Hill Community Office (2823 Fairfax St., Denver, CO 80207 map)

• Dr. Kenneth Lichtenstein, MD will be discussing the decisions, concerns, and results of the installation of the 5kw system at his home in Park Hill by Namaste (the company that President Obama highlighted during his visit here for the Stimulus bill signing).


• State Sen. Morgan Carroll will be discussing the bill she introduced -- SB09-51, which (among other things) provides financing of alternative energy installations for low-income households


• Mr. Jonah Fruchter from the Sierra Club will be discussing alternative energy, available rebates, and the need for grassroots involvement.

A May 2005 Pew Poll revealed that 65 percent agreed government should guarantee health coverage for every American "even if it means raising taxes." In a 2009 Lake Research Partners survey, nearly 7 in 10 voters expressed a desire for complete overhaul or major reform of the health care system. The April 2008 Annals of Internal Medicine reported that 59 percent of U.S. doctors supported "government legislation to establish national health insurance," an increase of 10 percent of doctors over 5 years.

The debate continues to be short-circuited, an effective blackout in some media markets since the convening of the Colorado 208 Commission on Health Care Reform. Though the CHS single-payer proposal was the only 1 of 5 proposals demonstrating state cost savings of $1.4 billion and comprehensive coverage for all, it was buried in the Commission’s final report and dismissed as ‘politically unfeasible.’

Throughout the 208 Commission process, the Denver Post and The Rocky Mountain News printed only health care reform pieces by ‘free-market’ advocates. The News business editor, Rob Reuteman backed out of his promise to give equal time to single-payer, saying that it is "pie-in-the-sky" and "I don’t want to confuse the readers." Media marginalization continues.

The Colorado Guaranteed Health Care Act (HB 1273) moved out of the Business Affairs Committee on March 18, with at least 100 supporters, many providers and small business owners testifying about the need to address the declining primary care infrastructure and the rising cost that make coverage prohibitive. It was noted that Massachusetts reform is a trainwreck, marked by taxpayer-subsidized private insurance and growing numbers on Medicaid rolls, doubliing Massachusetts health spending, from $630 million in 2007 to an estimated $1.3 billion in 2009.

HCPF director and the governor’s spokesperson, Joan Henneberry spoke against HB 1273, calling it a "a new bureaucracy." In fact, the bill intends to address the unsustainable private and public health care bureaucracies. Multi-payer insurances are paper-intensive with high overhead costs; and the Colorado Medicaid bureaucracy maintains about 20 different categories of Medicaid, each with different means testing and annual reauthorizations that erect barriers to health care access and exponentially increase administrative costs.

On March 27 Colorado State of Mind (ch 6) invited panelists to speak about Colorado health care reform, but failed to include anyone who could speak to the specious arguments raised against HB 1273. Pediatrician Larry Wolk asserted that single payer denies ‘choice,’ and that it represents ‘one-size-fits-all’ -- variations on the ‘free-market’ theme holding that people want a choice of insurances, rather than a choice of health care providers. A choice of minimum-benefit and catastrophic coverage is no choice at all - something employees are discovering as costs rise and more are moved into reduced-benefit policies with high out-of-pocket costs.

Pediatric cardiologist Dr. Reginald Washington noted that even if more people have public or private insurance, there are not enough primary care providers in Colorado to care for everybody. In fact, more primary care providers are leaving private practice, overwhelmed by the burden of dealing with multi-payer networks, copious paperwork, preauthorizations and claims denials that take away valuable time from patients, and require them to hire extra staff.

The Colorado Guaranteed Health Care Act (HB1273) provides the structure for a long-term, systemic solution – simplified billing, quality-centered health care, and full choice of providers and hospitals. It addresses our degraded primary care system with investment in education to address provider shortages; and requires transparency for determining best practices, and incentives for improved health outcomes and costs containment.

The bill passed out of Appropriatiions April 3 and will probably be heard in the full House the week of April 6. All of our legislators and the governor need to hear that there is grassroots support for HB1273. Appropriations members are below. Identify your legislators at www.vote-smart.org . Write an email to the governor at http://www.chcpf.state.co.us/governor/contact.html.

To those who ask why we do this at the state level, there have been federal bills (which may be re-introduced this session) to fund state pilot projects for health care reform. At least one of our congressional delegation is willing to help us at the federal level, and we need to be ready. If you think comprehensive health care reform will happen quickly at the federal level, please read the following piece I wrote for Huffington Post:  Dems & Repubs on Health Care: 'Love a Lobbyist' - we need to urge our federal senators and representatives to work for meaningful reform.

There are national Petitions in process to ask Obama to appoint a Special Prosecutor to lead US Department Of Justice enforcement actions against the Bush appointee Lawyers that advocated felony violations of our Federal Laws on Torture, and Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Who have addmitted Ordering felony

This website is a quick way to sign the Petition to have them Indicted and to ask Obama to appoint a Special Prosecutor Thanks for your assistance.

Bloomberg reports:

The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or guaranteed $12.8 trillion, an amount that approaches the value of everything produced in the country last year, to stem the longest recession since the 1930s... 

The money works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. and 14 times the $899.8 billion of currency in circulation. The nation’s gross domestic product was $14.2 trillion in 2008. 

Look at the table:

MENDOTA, Calif. — The customer seemed interested in a black blouse offered for $1 at the thrift store. But instead of buying it, she set it on the front counter.

Maybe tomorrow, she told the cashier, she would have the money. Or the next day. But not now.

"That is the way people are now," said the cashier, Alicia Reyes, as she watched the middle-aged woman walk out of the store. "They just come in here and look. They just come in here to kill the time. And then they take off."

Welcome to life in Mendota — the unemployment capital of California. With a 41 percent jobless rate, the town's social fabric is tearing at the seams. Alcoholism and crime are on the rise. To save money, some mothers wash and re-use disposable diapers. Unemployed men with nothing to do wander the streets and sit on benches....

The national Katrina is here and now.

This really, really cheeses me off when I read this McClatchy report:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday will reject requests for almost $22 billion in new taxpayer bailout money for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler, saying the car makers have failed to take steps to ensure their viability.

But..butt-boy Geithner wants this:

March 30 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said some financial institutions will need substantial government aid, while warning against any attempt to tax investors who join a federal program to buy tainted assets from banks. 

Right!  Just because AIG has lost almost 100 billion USD in the last six months and the American taxpayer has bailed out AIG to the tune of almost 250 billion USD in the last four months.

Meanwhile...

GM and Chrysler have already received $17.4 billion in government rescue money. The two companies faced a Tuesday deadline for the government to approve plans they'd submitted weeks ago in hopes of persuading the Obama administration that they could remain in business anad deserved additional money.

I suggest reading "Why GM Matters" and "American Theocracy" to understand that what is happening is the collapse of American industry.  The collapse in no way should be happening except for the fact that the political and mass media systems has been utterly corrupted by the Wall Street Banksters.

Why we can give the crooks and grifters on Wall Street trillions of dollars?  But when it comes to real jobs that create real products there is the "kick in the teeth" for GM and Chrysler?

Why does the economic plans by Geithner trump the ideas that Nobel Prize winners Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz have?  Because President Obama picked "Timmeh" Geithner as Secretary of Treasury simply because he was "an insider"?

[BTW- Some wag suggested that former New York governor Eliot Spitzer should be the new Secretary of Treasury!  Why?  Because then we would see real rules and rules that would be strictly enforced for the "Masters of the Universe" who are nothing more than WATB (see this).  For example Spitzer just recently wrote about AIG and not the executive compensation but the billions of dollars that was being paid out by AIG to counterparty foreign banks.}

So, the economists who have some ideas on how to handle the financial crisis are not the ones in charge (Krugman, Stiglitz, and Roubini) but the same people who created or had oversight on the financial "bucket" games going on.

Will Obama fail his Katrina moment?

I caught this off Huffingtonpost.com about Jim Cramer and his boasting of what he did as a hedge fund manager:

-On manipulating the market: "A lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund, and I was positioned short, meaning I needed it down, I would create a level of activity before hand that could drive the futures,"

-On falsely creating the impression a stock is down (what he calls "fomenting"): "You can't foment. That's a violation... But you do it anyway because the SEC doesn't understand it." He adds, "When you have six days and your company may be in doubt because you are down, I think it is really important to foment."

Check it out

Josh Marshall, Talkingpointsmemo.com, found this little backgrounder about Tim Geithner:

...Sandy Weill, the guy who in the 1990s built Citi into the mammoth systemic risk Death Star it is today wanted the job [CEO] to go to Tim Geithner.

So if Geithner is ousted from Sec. of Treasury then he could simply jump on the Citigroup ship?   This is what Felix Salmon, Portfolio.com, thinks. 

What a marvelous stinking revolving door.  While we the taxpayers are stuck with people like Geithner who still talk of "free market" and "private companies" as being the be all and end all for the American economy.

BTW- Meanwhile, President Obama thinks of the netroots and bloggers in this light:

And part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another – well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine, or this or that or the other. 

Duncan Black, Eschaton blog, writes:

I find it more amusing than annoying that Obama has joined with many others in employing the rhetorical trick of attributing any views you wish to marginalize as coming from bloggers.

I guess we, the netroots and bloggers, are just too darn new, still!   Perhaps Obama is still an intermediary step in the new political landscape and political process; i.e., Dean for America as version 1.0 then MyBarackObama as version 2.0 but what will version 3.0 look like?

Isn't it about time to have our government start a new financial system?  Bloomberg News has estimated that we are now in debt to the tune of over 11 trillion dollars for bailing out grifters.  The biggest rip off in history.

Sign this to tell Congress no more bailout money for con men.  It is time to start a new financial system.

Firedoglake.com has a petition to sign. 

• The Fed's Vice Chair Donald Kohn has refused to comply with requests from both the House and the Senate for the names of banks receiving federal funds, angering Republicans and Democrats alike.
• Bloomberg estimates that the government has spent more than $11.7 trillion to save the financial system since the crisis began, but Fed has refused to comply with Bloomberg's requests for details under the Freedom of Information Act.
• We know now that $80 billion of the $162 billion used to bailout AIG went to pay off its derivative trading partners at the full value of their contracts, despite the fact that values had tumbled. Economist Nouriel Roubini calls it "a nontransparent, opaque and shady bailout of the AIG counterparties: Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and other domestic and foreign financial institutions.
• The House passed the TARP Reform and Accountability Act on January 16, which would provide increased conditions, transparency and accountability for Wall Street bailout funds. The Senate is refusing to take up the legislation."

Admiral Mullen seems intent on playing up the fears of a nuclear weapon possessing Iran.  In interviews over the weekend he spoke that Iran had enough fissile material to produce a nuclear weapon. 

However Secretary of Defense Gates said that Iran does not have the bomb grade uranium that is necessary for producing a nuclear weapon within a short time period.

Read this LA Times article and come to your own conclusion.

I would say that there are two components to building a strategic weapon- 1). the warhead and 2). a delivery system.

What is lacking is the necessary enrichment production system and a ballastic missile that has the range and accuracy system.

Eventually there will be a MAD doctrine for the regional powers in the Middle East if there is not real diplomatic progress both overall and specifically with the Palestine/Isreal problem.

HB 09-1273 - the Colorado Guaranteed Health Care Act - defines the structure for meaningful health care reform. It is the only current proposed systemic health care reform that addresses the crisis of health care financing and delivery. Read Bill Description & Summary.

It is popular to say that single, public-payer health insurance with full choice of providers is the solution, but it is "not politically feasible" - which has become an expression of the lack of political will to do the right thing. Fifty-nine percent of doctors (historically conservative) in a recent poll supported the single-payer model of health care reform.

A friend's doctor is one who no longer processes health insurance claims - he requires payment from his patients, whom he advises to file their own claims with their insurance companies. Similarly, some hospitals have been reported to require up-front payment from patients who have "catastrophic" insurances with high-out-of-pocket expenses (underinsurance), which notoriously result in unpaid medical bills. 

Thus far, HB 09-1273 has 15 House and 3 Senate cosponsors. Urge your legislators to sign on as cosponsor. HB 09-1273 could become a significant contributor to economic recovery.

The Following Groups have endorsed the the Colorado Guaranteed Health Care Act. If your group would like to endorse, contact info@healthcareforallcolorado.org.

• Colorado Nurses Association
• Colorado Medical Society
• National Association of Social Workers, Colorado Chapter
• Rocky Mountain Farmers Union
• Colorado Education Association
• League of Women Voters (Colorado)
• Junior League of Denver
• Colorado Cross Disability Coalition
• Autism Society of Colorado
• Colorado Social Legislation Committee
• Hunger for Justice Lutheran Advocacy Ministry of Colorado
• The Rocky Mountain Conference of The United Methodist Church
• Balanced Choice Health Care, Inc.
• Colorado Alliance for Retired Americans
• Be the Change USA
• Justice and Peace Ministry Team of the Rocky Mountain Conference of the United Church of Christ
• Arapahope Community Team
• LARASA (Latin American Research And Service Agency)

Click here to tell Scott Renfroe what you think!

On the floor of the State Senate yesterday, Senator Scott Renfroe (R-Greeley) actually referred to gay and lesbian people as an "abomination" and an "offense to God."

It gets worse:

Renfroe equated gay and lesbian people with murderers and quoted the Book of Leviticus suggesting that gay people should be put to death.

He also said that women were created to be "helpers" for men, quoting the Book of Genesis.

Renfroe was referring to Senate Bill 88, a bill that would extend healthcare coverage to the same-sex partners of state employees. SB 88 is about healthcare. It's about gaining some measure of equality for gay and lesbian state employees. And regardless of how people like James Dobson and Scott Renfroe feel about gay people, their shameless hate-mongering has no place in public debate and we should reject them completely.

Respond to Scott Renfroe.

http://www.ProgressNowColorado.org/NoHateState

And please also forward this email to your friends and urge them to sign as well. ProgressNow Colorado will deliver your comments by the end of the week.

Sincerely,

Bobby Clark
Deputy Director

Attend the hearing for HR 1273 currently scheduled on March 18 at 1:30 pm in the Capitol Old Supreme Court Chambers, 2nd floor. 

Journalist T.R. Reid contrasts U.S. health care with that in 5 other industrialized nations in his documentary ‘Sick Around the World.’ None of the 5 countries he visited – Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Taiwan and Great Britain – utilizes for-profit insurance; all pay on average half as much per capita for health care as the U.S., and all have better health care outcomes, longer lives, etc.

Rather than a quality-centered health care system, the U.S. profit-centered model of health care has compromised our primary care infrastructure. At least one hundred overburdened U.S. emergency rooms have closed their doors over the past decade. It was recently reported that University Hospital became the 8th area facility to close its psychiatric unit; at the same time, it maintains a new 6-story building on the Fitzsimmons campus dedicated solely to billing, processing more than 1,000 different forms for over 1,000 different insurers.

Over 20 federal and state studies, including the Colorado Lewin Group study in 2007, have demonstrated billions of dollars of savings in health care spending, as well as the ability to provide comprehensive health care for all, utilizing a single-risk-pool publicly financed and privately delivered health care system.

The Colorado Guaranteed Health Care Act, HB09-1273, has been introduced to create the structure for comprehensive reform that guarantees health care for all Coloradans. In addition to streamlining administrative health costs, HB09-1273 stipulates annual negotiation of fair reimbursement to all providers; negotiation of prescription drug and medical equipment costs; support for education to address primary care, nursing and other provider shortages; and prioritization of retraining for displaced workers.

In the place of inadequate private insurances that have seen premium increases of more than 100% since 2000, the single public-payer model of health insurance separates health coverage from employment, establishes a sliding-scale premium based on income, and permits full choice of health care providers. Read more about the proposed bill at www.HealthCareforAllColorado.org, then urge your legislators to support HB09-1273, comprehensive health care for all Coloradans.

I caught this off Talkingpointsmemo.com on the secret meetings going on in the Senate:

Many of the parties, from big insurance companies to lobbyists for consumers, doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, are embracing the idea that comprehensive health care legislation should include a requirement that every American carry insurance.

I think that this is shows that all stakeholders are involved in the process but the plain truth is that even though patients do have a voice it could very well be drowned out by the "Big Bucks Boyz" of BigPharma and Big Insurance.

Read the list of who is at the table:

....The 20 people who regularly attend the meetings on Capitol Hill include lobbyists for AARP, Aetna, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the American Cancer Society, the American Medical Association, America's Health Insurance Plans, the Business Roundtable, Easter Seals, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and the United States Chamber of Commerce....

Tell me if what comes out is what will be good for people or for the bottom line?