american life expectancy

well, well, well, the best, most advanced and all-around just special health care system in the US is turning out to be a laggard in -- how can this be? -- life expectancy compared with other developed countries?

we've heard so much from the corporate media, supposedly echoing what it picks up from the grassroots "tea party" movement, which itself is paid for by wealthy corporate benefactors, that the system as it presently is owned and operated is just the cat's meow. couldn't be better, and don't muck with it!

the healthcare "reforms" shepherded through by the obambi administration was derided as a government takeover of healthcare that would ruin our god-given and perfect system with government bureaucrats convening death panels to winnow away all the decent, god-fearing white people. this heavenly system, run by benevolent corporate interests would be debased by socialistic negroes from another country!

the reforms, such as they are, are pretty pallid, but there are among some of its provisions a few things worthwhile: no one denied for having a preexisting condition, a mandate of how much of each dollar in premiums must go to actual healthcare, etc. there's the insurance mandate to go along with it, however, which is a point of attack for the wingnuts, in the government forcing people to buy a product they don't want.

all the posturing of the GOPpers in congress to repeal the "job-killing" law are, of course, futile. and above all, the insurance companies are 100 percent in favor of the mandate. all they're asking their paid-for legislative lackeys to do is weaken enforcement of the parts they don't like -- like the percentage of each dollar to be spent on care.

meanwhile, the facts that people need aren't getting out there. there's an outfit called politfact.com that subjects some of these claims politicians make to fact checking. one of eric cantor's more colorful characterizations, the one about how healthcare reform is a "job-killer" got the treatment, and was found to be  "not true". (politfact.com reserves it's "pants on fire" appellation for lower-rung politicians).

as with about 97 percent of the rhetoric coming from the yahoo class, there's absolutely no basis in fact to their arguments, but they simple redouble their efforts -- in effect, they don't retreat, they reload -- when it comes to telling their whoppers. their constituents don't mind -- they'd rather have their errors reinforced than to accept the possibility of error.

yes, and this is also a flavor of the nazi's "big lie", which a jew like cantor ought to recognize for the cancer on the body politic that it is, but he's tasted the kool-aid and the thuggery that goes along with wielding political power is acceptable, so long as he's the one wielding it!

anywhow, we have a healthcare system that's definitely NOT second to none. seniors, however, the GOP's most loyal constituency, has its medicare and is not thinking about paid-for medical services. they simply buy into the "government" takeover of healthcare as a socialist plot by the negro, and the companion threat that he wants to take away their medicare -- and assume the GOPpers will protect it.

the real solution to our healthcare troubles to a single-payer system -- a government takeover of healthcare. then, if the insurance companies want to compete for business with a government-sponsored plan, we can see just how efficient the "market" really is -- and how competitive in price.

that, of course, is the choice we'll never get. not even asking for the government to run healthcare, we can't even get the option of a government plan -- and that's the giveaway that there's no benefit in the private insurance setup as its presently setup. the industry knows that given a choice, their customers would bail so fast that they'd be history before lunch.

we don't get the best healthcare in the world, but we have the most expensive. and what distinguishes us from any sensible and civilized nation is that in the USA, healthcare is a business above all else. patient outcomes are secondary -- or maybe even further down the list -- to a healthy return on investment for the shareholders and execs. it's not about health, it's about money.

and the percentage of GDP that's going to this healthcare industry clusterfuck is going to grind down the economy in the next couple of decades, unless we do some major surgery on the system -- and the entire way of life in the USA.

we're fat, lazy and overall unhealthy, have an enormous appetite for self-indulgence and no visible means of support for the mid- to long term. a bunch of bloated, ignorant, poor assholes with no clue what to do or where to go to get out of the predicament they've made for themselves in their lousy choices.

eventually, if there isn't a compassionate system established to take care of these people as they get older, we'll see demagogues following in sarah palin's footsteps who will be talking about death panels again -- but this time in a reverential way, as the decent and all-american way to build a better tomorrow for this most exceptional nation with its most exceptional wealthcare system.