On the Edge with Max Keiser (08/21/09): Revolution is in the air in America

More on Blackwater (now XE):
CIA hired Blackwater mercenaries to try to hit al-Qaeda
“Incestuous” relationships between Blackwater and the US government
Blackwater got a new $22.2 million deal from the State Department
Paul Craig Roberts: Americans: Serfs Ruled by Oligarchs


1 of 3:

Read moreOn the Edge with Max Keiser (08/21/09): Revolution is in the air in America

What Soviet Medicine Teaches Us

obamacaresymbol

In 1918, the Soviet Union became the first country to promise universal “cradle-to-grave” healthcare coverage, to be accomplished through the complete socialization of medicine. The “right to health” became a “constitutional right” of Soviet citizens.

The proclaimed advantages of this system were that it would “reduce costs” and eliminate the “waste” that stemmed from “unnecessary duplication and parallelism” – i.e., competition.

These goals were similar to the ones declared by Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi – attractive and humane goals of universal coverage and low costs. What’s not to like?

The system had many decades to work, but widespread apathy and low quality of work paralyzed the healthcare system. In the depths of the socialist experiment, healthcare institutions in Russia were at least a hundred years behind the average US level. Moreover, the filth, odors, cats roaming the halls, drunken medical personnel, and absence of soap and cleaning supplies added to an overall impression of hopelessness and frustration that paralyzed the system. According to official Russian estimates, 78 percent of all AIDS victims in Russia contracted the virus through dirty needles or HIV-tainted blood in the state-run hospitals.

Irresponsibility, expressed by the popular Russian saying “They pretend they are paying us and we pretend we are working,” resulted in appalling quality of service, widespread corruption, and extensive loss of life. My friend, a famous neurosurgeon in today’s Russia, received a monthly salary of 150 rubles – one third of the average bus driver’s salary.

In order to receive minimal attention by doctors and nursing personnel, patients had to pay bribes. I even witnessed a case of a “nonpaying” patient who died trying to reach a lavatory at the end of the long corridor after brain surgery. Anesthesia was usually “not available” for abortions or minor ear, nose, throat, and skin surgeries. This was used as a means of extortion by unscrupulous medical bureaucrats.

“Slavery certainly ‘reduced costs’ of labor, ‘eliminated the waste’ of bargaining for wages, and avoided ‘unnecessary duplication and parallelism’.”

To improve the statistics concerning the numbers of people dying within the system, patients were routinely shoved out the door before taking their last breath.

Read moreWhat Soviet Medicine Teaches Us

Dennis Kucinich: Health Care Wanted … Dead or Alive

dennis-kucinich

The masquerade is over! The “public option” is … dead.

Health care reform is now a private option: WHICH FOR PROFIT INSURANCE COMPANY DO YOU WANT? You have to choose. And you have to pay. If you have a low income, under HR3200 government will subsidize the private insurance companies and you will still have to pay premiums, co-pays and deductibles.

The Administration plan requires that everyone must have health insurance, so it is delivering tens of millions of new “customers” to the insurance companies. Health care? Not really. Insurance care! Absolutely. Cost controls? No chance.

You will next hear talk about “co-ops.” The truth is that insurance company campaign contributions have co-opted the public interest.

I need your help to spread the word and rally the nation around true healthcare reform which covers everyone and maintains fiscal integrity without breaking our nation’s bank! Your contribution will empower our efforts to continue to fight for the single-payer, not-for-profit health care bill, HR676 “Medicare for All,” which I co-authored with John Conyers.. The bill now has 85 sponsors in the House.

The hotly-debated HR3200, the so-called “health care reform” bill, is nothing less than corporate welfare in the guise of social welfare and reform. It is a convoluted mess. The real debate which we should be having is not occurring.

Read moreDennis Kucinich: Health Care Wanted … Dead or Alive

US healthcare expenditure: The biggest waste of money in the world

expenditure-on-health
Click to enlarge

I don’t claim to be any kind of an expert on the US healthcare debate. Far from it. But what I do know is that in its totality, healthcare spending in the US is one of the most inefficient uses of money anywhere in the world. Despite the fact that well over half this spending is private, it fails to obey the first principles of efficient market theory. US healthcare makes even the notorious inefficiences of  state spending in the UK look tolerable by comparison.

America spends vastly more per head of population and as a percentage of GDP on healthcare than any other nation in the world (see accompanying bar chart), yet this fails to result in notably better life expectancy or quality of life for the US as a whole than other advanced nations that spend far less. Nor is this lack of value for money accounted for by the averaging down effect caused by the sizeable, uninsured minority that enjoys only sub-standard healthcare. American medicine, knowing that in the end it is the insurer that picks up the tab, has a tendency to apply the most extraordinary array of safety first, mainly unnecessary but hugely costly, tests and procedures to almost any condition. This enriches the medical profession and its support industries but is steadily bankrupting the nation and its corporations.

Here’s one example of it I’ve experience of. A friend of mine having recently undergone open heart surgery in Britain was in the US for work purposes when he developed a form of septicemia which had sprung from his earlier operation. This had nothing to do with the supposed short comings and/or negligence of Britain’s National Health Service, as he had had the operation privately. In any case, he was eventually adviced by US practictioners where he had been hospitalised – having by that stage already run up medical bills of in excess of £100,000 for less than a month’s care – that he would have to have the whole operation as a matter of urgency again and couldn’t possibly make the trip back to the UK for the procedure as this would be far too risky.

Read moreUS healthcare expenditure: The biggest waste of money in the world

Joe Biden: We Have to Go Spend Money to Keep From Going Bankrupt

Yes, we can … destroy the dollar and bankrupt America!


joe-biden
Vice President Joe Biden (Photo by Penny Starr/CNSNews.com)

(CNSNews.com) – Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.

“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.

“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?'” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that’s what I’m telling you.” (Listen to Audio)

The event, sponsored by the AARP – which supports the Obama administration’s plan – was attended by mostly AARP members who were bussed in for the meeting.

Read moreJoe Biden: We Have to Go Spend Money to Keep From Going Bankrupt

China warns the Federal Reserve over printing money

The U.S. is totally broke:

Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank:
The
“very big hole” in unfunded pension and health-care liabilities is over $99 trillion.

Of course China is worried about the Fed purchasing Treasuries, because this is creating pure inflation, which destroys the value of China’s investment. Also the Treasury bubble has burst, which is really bad news for anybody investing in Treasuries. This crisis has just started. The worst is yet to come: A hyperinflationary depression, the ‘Greatest Depression’.


China has warned a top member of the US Federal Reserve that it is increasingly disturbed by the Fed’s direct purchase of US Treasury bonds.

Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, said: “Senior officials of the Chinese government grilled me about whether or not we are going to monetise the actions of our legislature.”

“I must have been asked about that a hundred times in China. I was asked at every single meeting about our purchases of Treasuries. That seemed to be the principal preoccupation of those that were invested with their surpluses mostly in the United States,” he told the Wall Street Journal.

His recent trip to the Far East appears to have been a stark reminder that Asia’s “Confucian” culture of right action does not look kindly on the insouciant policy of printing money by Anglo-Saxons.

Read moreChina warns the Federal Reserve over printing money

LA Hospital CEO Pleads Guilty to Health Care Fraud

LA hospital CEO pleads guilty to billing government for unnecessary care given to the homeless

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former hospital executive admitted Friday he paid a man to recruit homeless people for unnecessary medical treatment in a scheme to bilk government health programs out of millions of dollars.

Dr. Rudra Sabaratnam, who ran City of Angels Medical Center, faces up to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to paying a recruiter nearly $500,000 to find Skid Row homeless people with Medi-Cal or Medicare cards and transport them to the hospital.

In his plea agreement, which remains under seal, Sabaratnam also agreed to pay more than $4.1 million in restitution to Medicare and Medi-Cal.

Read moreLA Hospital CEO Pleads Guilty to Health Care Fraud

US: $455,000 debt per household

As the Bush administration proposes backstopping mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a $300 billion line of credit and Congress contemplates another economic stimulus, the question is who will bail out the government?

“People seem to think the government has money,” said former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. “The government doesn’t have any money.”

A rare consensus has developed across the political spectrum that the government’s own fiscal affairs are precarious, with an astonishing $53 trillion in long-term liabilities, according to the Government Accountability Office.

To put that number in human terms, the debt has reached $455,000 per U.S. household. As that debt grows, the United States increasingly relies on foreigners, including China and Middle East oil producers, for financing.

Read moreUS: $455,000 debt per household

In Lies We Trust: The CIA, Hollywood and Bioterrorism – Official Release

This feature length documentary about medical madness, cloaked in bioterrorism preparedness, will awaken the brain dead. It exposes health officials, directed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), for conducting a “War of Terror” that is killing millions of unwitting Americans. This urgent life-saving DVD comes without copyright restrictions. Every viewer is encouraged to reproduce and distribute copies to others. Donations to Tetrahedron Films to cover costs and produce more films like this are greatly appreciated online at http://www.inlieswetrust.com or by calling toll free 1-888-508-4787. You can screen the film on behalf of local charities. It was produced by award-winning humanitarian, Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz (http://www.DrLenHorowitz.com), a world-renowned authority in public health education, covert intelligence agency operations, and emerging diseases investigations. He is the author of three American bestsellers, including Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola—Nature, Accident or Intentional? and Healing Codes for the Biological Apocalypse. (Tetrahedron Press; 1-888-508-4787) This monumental film exposes the agents and agencies behind: Hollywood films and the media creating a profitable culture of bioterror; the “War on Terrorism” used to control populations; the most lucrative war in history—the “War on Cancer;” the onslaught of dozens of new immunological diseases and deadly flus; the “War on AIDS” triggered by contaminated vaccines; the anthrax mailings resulting in restricted freedoms, and sales of toxic drugs, deadly vaccines, and more. Documents displayed in film may be viewed online at http://inlieswetrust.com For over 400 of the top Critically important videos see http://netctr.com/media — Much more at the site. Wake up, get involved, Save the Republic – Your kids, grand kids and your life will depend on what you do from now on.

Source: video.google