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PEACE & JUSTICE CALENDAR
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Jean Buskin

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Dan McConnell

featuring
Tiny the Worm


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The People's Comic


Cartoons of
John Jonik

Inking Truth to Power

Latest Posts
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MILITARY

Former US Attorney General Testifies for Plowshares Activists Ramsey Clark supports WA anti-nuke movement Ground Zero Center (Nov 28, 2010)

HEALTH

Hunger Up 36% in Washington State from Children's Alliance, cartoon by John Ambrosavage (Nov 28, 2010)

POLITICS

The Progressive Tea Party? Maybe when it comes to surveillance issues Doug Collins, cartoon by Dan McConnell (Nov 28, 2010)
Obama Wooing 'Economic Royalists' FDR was way gutsier Norman Solomon, cartoon by David Logan (Nov 28, 2010)

SUBSTANCES

The Dirty Secret Behind 'Demon Tobacco' Regulation doesn't cover cigarette additives Doug Collins, cartoons by John Jonik (Nov 28, 2010)

EDUCATION

America’s Education Gender Gap Bill Costello, cartoon by John Ambrosavage (Nov 28, 2010)

ELECTIONS

Washington State Votes Against Change Janice Van Cleve, cartoon by Dan McConnell (Nov 28, 2010)

FOLLOW FILE updates

DeCourseys v. Real Estate Giant; Amazon Prevails in Customer Privacy Doug Collins, cartoon by John Ambrosavage (Nov 28, 2010)

ENVIRONMENT

Poll: Southwest WA Supports Conservation Climate Solutions, cartoon by John Jonik (Nov 28, 2010)

CULTURE

What Color Is Your Santa? holiday cartoons by John Ambrosavage (Nov 28, 2010)

MEDICINE

WA Doctors Tell McKenna: Put Patients Before Politics Doctors for America (Oct 25, 2010)

ACTIVISM

No, Higher Consciousness Won’t Save Us Charles Reich got his second book right Norman Solomon (Oct 23, 2010)

LAW

Modern-Day Debtors’ Prisons in WA ACLU of WA, with cartoon by John Jonik (Oct 23, 2010)

RIGHTS

Report: Racial Profiling Pervasive Across America OneAmerica (Oct 23, 2010)

WORLD

Port Townsend Food Co-op Rejects Israel Boycott Jefferson County BDS, cartoon by George Jartos (Oct 23, 2010)

HISTORY

A Bellhop in the Swingin' Seventies Overly detailed resume plus cartoon by John Ambrosavage (Oct 20, 2010)
Johnny Horizon's Draft Physical Can he avoid Vietnam? John Merriam (Oct 20, 2010)

AROUND WASHINGTON

Gregoire passes the hatchet; Bears love garbage; Where does the PUD travel to? featuring cartoons by Dan McConnell (Oct 20, 2010)

ECONOMY

Now's the Time to Expand Social Security Good for both Americans and American companies Steven Hill (Sept 9, 2010)

WAR

Obama's Speech for Endless War Normon Solomon, cartoon by Dan McConnell (Sept 9, 2010)

ENERGY

Yellowstone: The #1 National Security Threat Unless we turn Wyoming into a new energy Mecca Martin Nix (Sept 9, 2010)

TECHNOLOGY

Biodefense, Biolabs and Bugs Seattle City Council takes an important first step to safety Labwatch.org (Aug 9, 2010)

WORKPLACE

Teenage Microsoft Sweatshop 15-hour shifts under poor conditions at Chinese factory from the National Labor Committee (May 16, 2010)

IMMIGRATION

Why US Immigration Policy Needs Tweaking Bill Costello, cartoon by David Logan (May 16, 2010)
Arizona Immigration Brouhaha Various opinions from near and far, cartoons by Logan and McConnell (May 2, 2010)

TRANSPORTATION

The Coming Microcar Revolution Martin Nix (May 16, 2010)

POETRY

A Poetic Look at Tacoma Glass Art Museum; a limer-ICK Gerald McBreen (Mar 28, 2010)
Fall Is For Falling Out Of Love, etc. three poems Bob Markey (Mar 29, 2010)

BUSINESS

Who Rules America? Corporate conglomeration is leading to neofeudalism Don Monkerud, cartoon by John Jonik (Mar 27, 2010)

TRUTH

Architects and Engineers Ask for New Look at 9/11 Doug Collins (Feb 20, 2010)

MEDIA

Is Olympic Coverage Sexist? Media coverage rarely gives women equal treatment Univ. of Alberta (Jan 24, 2010)

RIGHT BRAIN

Why I Don't Come at Christmas Anymore not-so-jolly Saint Nick (Dec 18, 2009) Santa Gets Political art by Ambrosavage, Lande, and Dees (Dec 17, 2009)

SPORTS

A People's History of Sports BOOK REVIEW Doreen McGrath (posted July 24, 2009)

CLIMATE

Cashing In On Earth's Cycles: Part 3 Alan Cheetham & Richard Kirby (posted July 24, 2009)
Obama: How Serious About Climate Change? Doug Collins (posted July 24, 2009)


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posted Nov. 6, 2009 Bookmark and Share



cartoon by John Jonik


A Close Look at the 'Corporate Option'

Ten reasons why mandatory private health insurance is an awful idea

By John Jonik


1) Private insurers are businesses that must grow. This guarantees endless cuts in service, and endless hikes in costs to the public. These companies have both motive and duty to provide as little service as possible at the highest price possible. This is an adversarial situation with the public.

2) A significant chunk of customers’ health care money goes to corporations that give contributions to political candidates that customers may not care to support. These corporations also spend customer money by lobbying for legislation that favors the corporations’ own interests. Mandatory purchase of private insurance would have our government---our sworn and paid representatives---compelling citizens to provide revenues to candidates preferred by private insurers. There is no public interest health-related justification for mandating this part of an insurance policy.

3) A large percent of the cost of a policy goes to non-health-related things such as advertising, CEO bonuses, corporate jets, business conventions, and corporate headquarters upkeep. No health-related justification exists for mandating that citizens pay for that along with the actual health benefits.

4) For-profit insurers, using revenue collected from customers, invest in all sorts of private businesses, many being among the most health-damaging ones, including cigarette manufacturing, pesticides (including many pesticides used in tobacco products), dioxin-producing chlorine industries, genetically engineered crops, and so forth. This creates a conflict of interest in that insurers would be inclined to ignore or play down harms caused by their investment properties. This conflict motivates insurers to blame, as a distraction and PR tactic, every non-industrial thing they can think of for causing diseases.

5) For-profit insurers invest heavily in environmentally destructive industries such as mountaintop removal coal mining, oil, clear-cut logging, and factory fishing. These insurers also invest in sweatshop operations, military contractors, and union-busting firms. Furthermore, these insurers may invest in businesses that compete with a customer’s own livelihood or in businesses which a customer may disapprove of for a variety of moral or religious reasons. A mandate to purchase services from such an insurer would be a compulsion on people to violate their own beliefs or undermine their own well-being.

6) For-profits invest in pharmaceuticals, thus creating a conflict of interest in that such an insurer would use its power to favor drugs from its own investment holdings over others that may be cheaper, more effective, or safer. This conflict would also prompt an insurer to be lax in checking, or warning about, insufficiently tested or harmful drugs. This syndrome virtually guarantees that an insurer would oppose use of natural, un-patented remedies.

7) Mandates to purchase private health insurance are notably different from mandates on car owners to buy auto insurance. One may opt out of that compulsion by simply not driving. But, with health care, those in certain income brackets where “having” insurance is to be mandated will have no option except unacceptable ones---to a) leave the country, b) deplete assets to avoid the obligation, or c) die.

8) Mandates force people to speak to private insurers, an apparent violation of the Fifth Amendment---especially regarding the above-noted parts of the program that have no justification on health care grounds.

9) A person in the income level that will be compelled to purchase private insurance services will be paying private insurers twice: once directly, and a second time via their taxes to subsidize private insurance for low income people. Government will not just pay doctors and hospitals---it will give our tax money to private insurers to do that, at undoubtedly a great cost.

10) When the government subsidizes private insurance for low income people, much of that money will still go to the non-health-related things---including the investments in god-knows-what, and including big campaign contributions to political candidates.

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