The McCain campaign likes to tell us we're a "nation of whiners" complaining about a "mental recession," so it should come as no surprise that their solution to the health care crisis is to simply have the Census Bureau redefine the term uninsured. Seriously. Let John Goodman, McCain's point-man on health care issues, explain:

"I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

Voila! No more health care problems! All those "whiners"out there who are losing their homes due to unmanageable health care bills can sleep sound tonight. The health care crisis is solved!  As Michigan Messenger says:

If you're uninsured, out of money - and not having a life-threatening emergency - you not only don't exist in John McCain's world, you're completely out of luck. 

TP, dKos, West Viginia Blue, All Spin Zone all have more.

  Uninsured Americans will spend $30 billion a year in out of pocket expenses and incur another $56 billion in government-subsidized expenses, says a new study for healthaffairs.org by Jack Hadley of George Mason University in Virginia and a team at the Urban Institute.

"The uninsured receive a lot less care than the insured, and they pay a greater percentage of it out of pocket. Contrary to popular myth, they are not all free riders," Hadley said.

Current estimates show that 47 million Americans lack any health insurance, and 28 million have gone without for some part of the year. The U.S. Census bureau is scheduled to release new estimates on Tuesday.

The study goes on to suggest that if the uninsured were covered, they would spend more on healthcare. An insured person spends about $100 dollars more a year, on average, out of their own pocket than does someone without insurance.

And in the meantime, Sen. Bernie Sanders has a sensible suggestion for a filler measure.

For a relatively small amount of money, we can provide primary health care to every American in need of it through an expansion of the successful Federally Qualified Health Center program.  On a budget of only $2 billion a year, this program, which has enjoyed widespread bipartisan support, now provides primary health care, dental care, mental health counseling, and low-cost prescription drugs to 17 million people through 1,100 health center organizations in every region of the country for an average cost of $125 per patient per year.  The doors of these centers are open to all, including patients with Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, or no insurance at all, with sliding-scale fees.

... for a total of $8.3 billion a year, we could have 4,800 centers caring for 56 million people in every medically-underserved region of the country.

This upfront investment – which constitutes less than 0.5 percent of overall U.S. spending on health care – would more than pay for itself. The centers are among the most cost efficient federal programs in existence today.  On average, medical expenses at health centers are 41 percent lower than in other health care settings. 

Most importantly, from a financial point of view, by treating people when they should be treated, we can save billions by keeping patients away from emergency rooms and expensive hospitalizations. 

What's not to like?

"You don't know insurance company rules? Oh, they're so sweet..."

Disclaimer: "Insurance company rules not compatible with Health Care for America Now. Which side are you on?"

h/t Jax

UPDATE: John Amato: Progressives fire back at insurers

Health Care for America Now announced Friday that it plans a news conference and a rally next week to counter the insurance industry's Campaign for an American Solution, which launches in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday with a roundtable discussion among uninsured locals.

"They're pretending that the health industry represents the American public, and we need to make it really clear to them and the public that all they represent are their own profits," said Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for.

On Tuesday, the group plans to rally about 300 supporters outside the Columbus YWCA, where America's Health Insurance Plans will hold its roundtable.

The $40 million it plans to spend by year's end will put 100 organizers in 45 states to hold town hall meetings, go door to door, staff phone banks and take action outside insurance offices. Already, the group has aired television spots in an extensive adverting campaign.

(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)

Today, thousands of health insurance executives are gathering in San Francisco for their major industry convention. We thought that we would welcome them to town with a TV ad to go along with a greeting committee of hundreds of protesters.

The ad is called "Insurance Jive" and it features a nurse (actor Beth Broderick of "Lost", see her HuffPo piece on the ad) who – reminiscent of the Barbara Billingsley character in the 1980 movie "Airplane" – translates insurance jargon for a hospital patient and her husband.

"Insurance Jive" is based on the true story of Patsy Bates. Health Net canceled – or "rescinded" – Patsy's health insurance policy after this 52-year-old grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer, forcing Patsy to halt chemotherapy for several months while piling up $129,000 in medical bills.

A judge recently ordered Health Net to pay Patsy a whopping $9 million in mostly punitive damages.

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Obama accepts a gift from a 95 yr old supporter, Charles Edwards, and uses it to put Congress on notice not to get in the way of his healthcare plan. Roanoke's WSLS News caught the video of this lighthearted moment yesterday in front of a packed gym in Bristol VA:

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Political Radar:

During the Question and Answer session, Obama met a 95-year-old African American man, whose daughter told Obama that he had waited his whole life for this moment.

The man wobbled slowly to the stage and presented Obama with a maple wood walking stick as a gift.

The presumptive democratic nominee, clearly feeling his oats, took the stick and said, "If members of Congress don't pass my health care bill - I'll whoop 'em, I'll whoop 'em. That's right, you better not mess with me, and I'll have that stick."

For the past several weeks, John McCain and his campaign have been enraged by the emphasis on his willingness to leave U.S. troops in Iraq for up to 100 years, and the audacity of Democrats to tell voters about his views on the issue. To hear them tell it, misrepresenting a rival’s stated policy position — which Dems really aren’t doing — is completely beyond the pale.

Which is odd, given McCain’s habit of wildly misrepresenting the Dems on healthcare policy.

Senator John McCain has been repeatedly suggesting that his Democratic rivals are proposing a single-payer, or even a nationalized health care system along the lines of those in countries like Canada and Britain.

The suggestion is incorrect. While both Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York are calling for universal health care and an expanded role for government, they stop well short of calling for a single-payer plan.

Mr. McCain has made the assertion several times in recent days, even as he and the Republicans have made repeated calls for accuracy on the campaign trail…. Yet on repeated occasions, Mr. McCain, of Arizona, has inaccurately described the Democrats’ health care proposals, using language that evokes the specter of socialized medicine.

On a campaign stop on Thursday, for example, McCain said Clinton and Obama “want a massive government takeover of the health care system in America.” A few months ago, McCain said the Dems offer a “single-payer big government solution.” A few months before that, he insisted that the Dems are offering a “government-run, single-payer system like they have in Canada and like they have in England.”

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Hillary Clinton doesn't bite when BillO tries to bully her into admitting that her health care plan would "bankrupt the country."  In fact, she quickly shuts down his straw man argument and schools him on why providing quality health care to all Americans is a moral issue while explaining clearly how she intends to pay for it.

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"If we don't [pass universal health care], we'll meet here again in five or ten years, we'll have more uninsured people, the prices will have continued to go up because we will not have put into place the safeguards and the accountability that our health care system needs." 

John Amato: BillO tries to use the age old "socialism" conservative talking point when describing any form of universal health care, but that doesn't hold up to the realities of everyday life in our country because people are struggling just to fill up their gas tanks let alone trying to carry incredibly high health care insurance costs for their families. And the idiotic tax break proposed by John McCain will have zero impact on the problem.

After John McCain unveiled more details on his healthcare plan yesterday in Tampa, the Politico ran this headline: “McCain moves to middle on health care.” Given that any policy proposal aiming for the “middle” is perceived as moderate and sensible, the spin on McCain’s plan was obviously positive.

But spin aside, the policy itself leaves much to be desired.

Senator John McCain detailed his plan to solve the nation’s health care crisis in a speech here Tuesday, calling for the federal government to give some money to states to help them cover people with illnesses who have been denied health insurance.

Mr. McCain’s health care plan would shift the emphasis from insurance provided by employers to insurance bought by individuals, to foster competition and drive down prices. To do so he is calling for eliminating the tax breaks that currently encourage employers to provide health insurance for their workers, and replacing them with $5,000 tax credits for families to buy their own insurance.

His proposal to move away from employer-based coverage was similar to one that President Bush pushed for last year, to little effect. And his call for expanding coverage through market-based competition is in stark contrast to the Democrats’ proposals to move toward universal health care coverage, with government subsidies to help lower-income people afford their premiums.

The good news is, the contrast between McCain’s approach and the Democrats’ approach couldn’t be greater. For voters concerned about healthcare, there’s a clear and distinct choice.

The bad news is, McCain’s plan is pretty awful, and probably won’t receive much in the way of scrutiny.

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Wow. George Stephanopoulos actually listened to us and asked John McCain some pretty tough questions today on This Week. Who knew that George read teh blogs? McCain's body language and facial expressions really belied his discomfort, but if you look closely, you can see it. And I've discovered a "tell" on the part of McCain when he's really painted into a corner, see if you can find it.

Case in point: note this little exchange between Stephanopoulos and McCain over healthcare. Elizabeth Edwards has been a vocal critic of McCain's proposed healthcare plan in that it basically doesn't help those who need it the most. McCain's response falls into the less than satisfactory category:

STEPHANOPOULOS: What's wrong with government -- what's wrong with government-run health care?

MCCAIN: And we continue to have these debates -- what's wrong with it? Go to Canada. Go to England and you can find out what's wrong with it. Governments don't make the right decisions. Families make the right decisions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the points Mrs. Edwards made in the Wall Street Journal, she said that your whole life, you had government health care. You were the son of a Naval officer, a Naval officer, now a member of Congress. And her point is, why shouldn't every American be able to get the kind of health care that members of Congress get or members of the military get?

MCCAIN: It's a cheap shot, but I did have a period of time where I didn't have very good government health care. I had it from another government. (LAUGHTER) So, look, I know what it's like in America not to have health care. We know that Americans are hurting there as well. We've got to make health care affordable and available. The difference, again, between myself and the Democrats, and with all due respect, Mrs. Edwards, I want the families to make the choices. They want the government to make the choices. That's a fundamental difference, and we will continue to debate that issue.

Actually, McSame, let's look at England's healthcare. PBS's Frontline did a fantastic program comparing healthcare in the US to five other capitalist democracies, including the UK. While the UK's program did have its drawbacks, the government has instituted policies to expand choice for the people and moreover, the government pays significantly less as a percentage of the GDP for healthcare than we do (8.3% vs. 15.3%) and it covers everyone. Hard to make facts sound bad, doesn't it, John?

Did you pick up the tell? Rather than respond intelligently to Edwards' valid point that McCain has taken advantage of government health care his entire (rather lengthy) life, he pulls the "Hanoi Hilton" card. Anyone think that calling attention to his POW days could be like Giuliani's invoking of 9/11? Not to detract from the traumas he experienced at the hands of the Vietcong, but what the heck does that have to do with healthcare?

full transcript below the fold:

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Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to think this observation might resonate with voters: John McCain could be denied coverage under John McCain’s healthcare plan. It’s a point Elizabeth Edwards drove home very well.

Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Democratic presidential contender John Edwards, said she and John McCain have one thing in common: “Neither one of us would be covered by his health policy.”

Edwards lodged her criticism of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s proposal Saturday at the annual meeting of the Assn. of Health Care Journalists.

Under McCain’s plan, insurance companies “wouldn’t have to cover preexisting conditions like melanoma and breast cancer,” she said.

McCain has been treated for melanoma, the most serious type of skin malignancy. Edwards in 2004 was diagnosed with breast cancer, and announced a year ago that it had returned and spread into her bones, meaning it no longer could be cured.

McCain’s plan focuses on offering new tax breaks for individuals who buy their own health insurance. But critics say the Arizona senator’s proposal avoids giving insurers requirements on whom they must cover and how much they may charge.

At the risk of sounding picky, “critics say” McCain’s plan avoids requirements for insurance companies because McCain’s plan avoids requirements for insurance companies. It’s an objective fact, not a point of contention.

Indeed, it points to an ideological problem underpinning the debate. McCain seems to realize that his plan leaves millions of vulnerable Americans behind, but he also realize that the alternative is government regulation — specifically, telling insurers that they can’t exclude people with pre-existing conditions, and can’t price these people out of coverage. Given a choice between a large gap of uninsured and government-imposed safeguards for Americans, McCain prefers the prior.

Wall Street Journal:

The family of Deborah Shank has lost its last chance to stop Wal-Mart Stores from recouping hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical expenses from an accident settlement the Shanks hoped to use for her future care in a nursing home.

Last November, the WSJ reported in a front-page story how the retail giant had sued Deborah Shank—a 52-year-old former Wal-Mart employee left permanently brain damaged from a car accident nearly eight years ago—for the money and won. Like most employee health plans, Wal-Mart’s gives it the right to recover medical expenses for accident-related care if a worker also collects damages in an injury suit.

After losing in federal court and again on appeal, the Shanks’ last legal hope was a bid to the U.S. Supreme Court. Yesterday, though, the court announced it wouldn’t take up the case, bringing the matter to a close. Read on...

Welcome to the Bush-Wal-Mart America. Corporations trump the common folk every time. Elections matter, vote Democratic in November.

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If you're looking for a story that shows the abysmal state of health care in America, look no further. 60 Minutes traveled to Knoxville, TN to film a free clinic set up by a charity group called Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps, or RAM. The charity was initially started in the 90's by it's founder, Stan Brock, former co-star of Wild Kingdom, to give health care relief to remote areas of Latin America, but after watching this segment it's clear that America's health care system doesn't look too much different than that of a third world country.

Brock has no family, takes no salary and has no home. He is completely dedicated to RAM, as are the doctors and nurses who volunteer their time and expertise. The local response to this RAM clinic in Knoxville was amazing, yet profoundly saddening. Hundreds of people showed up for the clinic, many drove hours to get there and waited up to seven hours just to get a spot in line to be seen -- and ultimately, hundreds had to be turned away. These were not Cadillac driving welfare queens, they were average, working Americans who are under insured or have no insurance at all. The most disheartening part of it all is to see how many of these people had avoided seeking medical treatment for years because they couldn't afford it and are now reduced to begging for help. It's a microcosm of our medical system and it's a damn ugly sight in the world's wealthiest nation.

The full video and transcripts available at CBSNews.com 

Krugman writes in his NYT blog:

Rudy Giuliani warned us about what would happen if a Democrat wins:

You have got to see the trap. Otherwise we are in for a disaster. We are in for Canadian health care, French health care, British health care.

And that would be a terrible thing

Short version: The US health care system is already a disaster being made worse under a Republican President. "By 2002–03, the U.S. fell to last place" in deaths that "are potentially preventable with timely and effective health care" in a study of 19 industrialized nations. Of course all of the countries that bested the US have some form of universal health care.

Bottom line: Rudy wants voters to grant him and his wife "CheneyCare" by saying it would be a disaster if you and your family had it too.

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The family of Nataline Sarkisyan appeared at a John Edwards rally in Manchester, NH, to speak about the importance of reforming our healthcare system after the senseless death of Nataline due to bureaucratic obstacles placed by her insurance company. Her father, Kirkor Sarkisyan, admits that their political activism was spurred by both a desire to honor the memory of his daughter but to ensure that no other parent experience the loss that he has.

On a related note, Hillary Clinton's spokesperson, Jay Carson dismissed the Sarkisyan family's appearance at the Edwards event by saying that when Clinton refers to people in her speeches, she's actually helped them, not just "stories she’s pulled from the newspaper and included in her stump,” to which Edwards has rightfully questioned whether her campaign has a conscience.

I saw this a few days ago, but I'm still trying to rest during the holiday....Atrios:

California health insurers have a duty to check the accuracy of applications for coverage before issuing policies -- and should not wait until patients run up big medical bills, a state appeals court ruled Monday.

The court also said insurers could not cancel a medical policy unless they showed that the policyholder willfully misrepresented his health or that the company had investigated the application before it issued coverage.

"These facts raise the specter that Blue Shield does not immediately rescind health care contracts upon learning of potential grounds for rescission, but waits until after the claims submitted under that contract exceed the monthly premiums being collected," the court wrote.

A health plan, the court went on, "may not adopt a 'wait and see' attitude after learning of facts justifying rescission." The court said companies could not continue to "collect premiums while keeping open its rescission option if the subscriber later experiences a serious accident or illness that generates large medical expenses."...read on

The courts have caught on to their con game and it's starting to unravel...