Politics McDermott’s New Post
posted by on January 12 at 12:10 PM
Lots of people were watching to see what nine-term Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott would get when committee assignments were handed out in the new Democrat-controlled Congress.
Today brings the answer: McDermott was just elected chairman of the Human Resources Subcomittee, a part of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Says McDermott’s press release:
The subcommittee has jurisdiction over many vital social and economic programs that support the American people, including Unemployment Insurance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Security Income, some portions of the Social Security Act, and programs to protect and care for vulnerable children and disadvantaged families.
McDermott’s first move: Change the name of his subcommittee to “the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support,” in order, he says, “to better reflect its vision and mission.”
I was hoping he could propose a Nationalized Single-Payer Health Care system, like what every other first-world nation has at present.
knowing how committed he is to that idea (nationalized health care) I have no doubt that he'll do his best to forward that agenda.
Oh great, then we will have a health care system like every other first-world nation. Instead of the best (though flawed) system in the world.
Best? Maybe if you're a billionaire or multi-millionaire with a rare disease ... but not the other 99.9 percent of Americans.
Face it, we're bottom of the heap.
That must explaine all those Americans going overseas for health care... (And why no one comes here for our hospitals.) Right?
Most Liberals seem to pretend to believe that huge numbers of Americans, the overwhelming majority of whom are insured, get no health care at all, while the rich few wallow in luxury. In fact, the biggest problems uninsured Americans face are not doctors refusing to treat them, but the fact that they use the incredibly inconvenient emergency room for most of their care, and that a really bad illness could force them into bankruptcy. Not admirable, by any means, but a far cry from the tortured visions of poor Americans dying at the hospital's door, their pleas for care unheeded.
The reality of Nationalized Single-Payer Health Care systems is that a fair number of Europeans go without quality of life treatments (such as hip replacements), and some do die on waiting lists. (Granted, many of those people would have died anyway, because they have nasty diseases with life expectancies measured in months.) Where America caters, expensively, to their desire to live a few extra weeks or months; Europe does not.
Because I'm unhappy with our current state of medical progress, the most important single issue to me is which system encourages research and development. The answer, of course, is that neither does it nearly as well as I'd like, though the U.S. system is pretty clearly better than the European.
Not so very long ago “virtually every other developed nation” was a monarchy. The US found a better way then, and a truly conservative (not Fundamentalist or Christianist; think Oakeshott, think Goldwater) small government stance would be a better way now.
As to Universal Healthcare, most Liberals seem to pretend to believe that huge numbers of Americans, the overwhelming majority of whom are insured, get no health care at all, while the rich few wallow in luxury. In fact, the biggest problems uninsured Americans face are not doctors refusing to treat them, but the fact that they use the incredibly inconvenient emergency room for most of their care, and that a really bad illness could force them into bankruptcy. Not admirable, by any means, but a far cry from the tortured visions of poor Americans dying at the hospital's door, their pleas for care unheeded.
The reality of Nationalized Single-Payer Health Care systems is that a fair number of Europeans go without quality of life treatments (such as hip replacements), and some do die on waiting lists. (Granted, many of those people would have died anyway, because they have nasty diseases with life expectancies measured in months.) Where America caters, expensively, to their desire to live a few extra weeks or months; Europe does not.
Because I'm unhappy with our current state of medical progress, the most important single issue to me is which system encourages research and development. The answer, of course, is that neither does it nearly as well as I'd like, though the U.S. system is pretty clearly better than the European.
The same or similar can be said of most of the socialist ideologies Liberals parrot.
Please help me provide health resources for medically underserved populations and also works to build the health care workforce and maintains the National Health WBR LeoP
How it is adjusted at the state level of a problem with health? How much state committees are close to a life and to people? What programs open in this direction? WBR LeoP
How it is adjusted at the state level of a problem with health? How much state committees are close to a life and to people? What programs open in this direction? WBR LeoP
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