I guess it’s because the corporations aren’t people, just profit-seeking entities. But what about public relations as an engine of profit, as I learned in my (misguided) business school days?

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Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Maine, a subsidiary of WellPoint, the nation’s largest insurer, wanted the state to approve an average rate hike of 18.5 percent on its policyholders. Maine rejected the increase and now the insurer is fighting for the hike in court.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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Here is the question from the poll:

“Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government-administered health insurance plan like Medicare that would compete with private health insurance plans?”

65% percent of respondents said yes.

here is a full analysis of the poll by Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford.

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The U.S. spent $7,290 on health care for each person in 2007, 87 percent more than Canada’s $3,895, according to the latest OECD data. The U.S. also devoted the highest percentage of gross domestic product to health care, 16 percent, OECD numbers show. Canada’s expenditure was 10.1 percent.

Canadians live two to three years longer than Americans and are as likely to survive heart attacks, childhood leukemia, and breast and cervical cancer, according to the OECD, the Paris- based coalition of 30 industrialized nations.

Deaths considered preventable through health care are less frequent in Canada than in the U.S., according to a January 2008 report in the journal Health Affairs. In the study by British researchers, Canada placed sixth among 19 countries surveyed, with 77 deaths for every 100,000 people. That compared with the last-place finish of the U.S., with 110 deaths.

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With Max Baucus’ disastrous healthcare bill unveiled last week without even providing a weak public option, I agree with Mitchell Bard’s contention that Democrats need to get a backbone and stop trying to woo Republicans.

But I am not convinced that Baucus himself (and many other, though not all, Democrats) has simply been a part of this attempt to find common ground with Republicans in a wrong-headed attempt to compromise that has backfired.  Baucus never, ever showed signs of anything other than being a friend of corporate healthcare.  His Senate hearings in May didn’t include anyone backing single payer, and as made clear by Peter Dreier, two of his former chiefs of staff are now lobbyists for the healthcare industry, he has consistently been against the public option, and is well entrenched in the pockets of the health insurance industry.

With some individual exceptions, the Democratic party is very much a corporate party. It is not simply the good guy who tries to make peace with these over-the-top Republicans in an effort at bi-partisan law making.

And Baucus sits as one of the parties most strident corporate cheerleaders.    If there is some backbone in the Democrats, it won’t come from Baucus.  I am not feeling particularily hopeful, but let’s hope the Dems take Bard’s excellent advice: “Forget Baucus’s bill. Don’t give the Republicans another victory (one which represents a defeat for the American people). Pass meaningful health care reform, even if not a single Republican votes for it.” 

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Can We Win Single Payer State by State? by Deborah Burger, Labor Notes
When the dust settles on a final health care bill this fall, the tens of thousands of labor and community activists who have worked for years to pass single-payer reform (Medicare for all) may be able to point to one major milestone: an amendment that would assist individual states to enact single-payer health care. read more…

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