PoliticalJOE Shocks Brits with the Cost of Healthcare in America

From their name, I should think that PoliticalJOE are a branch of JOE, those merry funsters responsible for the videos in which they poke fun at politicos and other celebs by editing their speeches and public appearances to make them look stupid. In this video an interviewer simply walks around a street asking ordinary Brits what they think is the cost of certain services and items we get free with the National Health Service. He then leaves them shocked and horrified when he tells them the real prices. They are:

Ambulance call out – $2,500

Inhaler – $250-350

2 Epi pens – $600

Cost of childbirth – $10,000-30,000

If you give birth by Caesarian section and want to hold your baby, it’s another $40

The contraceptive coil – $1,300.

He then concludes the video by asking the people answering his questions what they think of the NHS. One woman describes it as ‘the gift that keeps on giving’ and that she doesn’t want it to change. A young Black man agrees with him when he asks him ‘how grateful are you for the NHS’. He says he didn’t know just how much free healthcare we have, that $30,000 for a baby is outrageous and thanks the NHS. A young woman states that she’s speechless, and had no idea how expensive healthcare was in the US. She says ‘If you don’t have money, you’re fudged’. When the interviewer asks her what she thinks of the people, who are profiting off the sale of these medicines, she replies , ‘Ya bastards!… I think they should be stopped. Fuck Trump!’

One of those spoken to is a young Black American, who’s aware we get everything free over here. Well, not quite – we still have to pay for prescriptions. But he says that he’s fortunate to have health coverage through his parents’ insurance. He has to use an epi pen, but even with insurance it’s a couple of hundred dollars. And his condition is severe, but not quite life threatening. When he’s asked why the pens are so expensive, he replies that he doesn’t know, but there are only a few companies making them, so they can charge what they like.

The video’s been discussed on the American left-wing news sites Secular Talk and the Ring of Fire, because it’s such an indictment of the current American healthcare system based on private insurance. Those sites back the awesome Bernie Sanders and his campaign to give America Medicare for All, so that all Americans have free healthcare. Bernie describes some of the horrors of the American healthcare system in his book, Our Revolution. 40,000 people in the US die annually because they can’t afford medicine. In Virginia, people sleep over in the cars for that weekend in the month when the dentists offer free treatment.

A few years ago, the American private healthcare system nearly collapsed entirely. But the American public is still told that their healthcare system is the best in the world.

This is the system that Johnson and Trump wish to introduce to the UK.

Don’t be deceived by the lies. They do. Trump actually said that he wanted it on the table when negotiations started under Tweezer. And even without Trump, the Tories and the Blairites in the Labour party have been privatising the NHS by ensuring that more and more services are given to private healthcare providers. Johnson even made a speech in 2003 denouncing the monopolistic NHS, because of the way it discouraged private health insurance and refused to admit private healthcare. And he is’t the only one. Margaret Thatcher wanted the complete privatisation of the NHS. Daniel Hannan, the Tory MEP for Dorset, would like it privatised. And the Tory right has several times tried to vote for increasing the number of NHS services for which charges would have to be paid.

And Nigel Farage has also said openly that Britain may have to move to an American healthcare system funded through private insurance.

The Tories are determined to privatise the NHS. This is why you cannot let them into power.

Before you vote Tory, think: can you afford the equivalent of $2,500 for an ambulance? And then vote Labour.

 

 

Democrat Lawmakers Wish to Strip Trump of His Power to Launch Nuclear Missiles

At last, after the mindless, terrifying posturing of Trump and Kim Jong In, there’s a bit of common sense in this latest nuclear crisis. A group of Democrat politicos, including Mark Lew, are demanding a change in legislation that would strip the American president of his current power to launch a nuclear attack without Congress’ authorization. This piece of legislation is currently backed by 50,000 signatures from the American public. A previous version of the law was signed by 500,000 people.

In this clip from The Ring of the Fire, the front man not only welcomes this piece of legislation, which would restrain Trump as someone too dangerously unstable to have this power, but asks why it was never passed before. All the past presidents, including Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan and George Dubya, had the power to launch a nuclear missile somewhere without having to seek Congress’ approval. This means that they could destroy a region anywhere, and leave it uninhabitable for 30 years. The presenter makes the point that no-one should power.

He’s absolutely right. The British comics writer and creator, Pat Mills, made a similar point back in an edition of Diceman, a comic whose strips were all Role-Playing Games. In one of these, the reader played Ronald Reagan, who had to go back in time to undo the series of events which were about to start a nuclear war with the former Soviet Union. Mills wrote in the notes to the game a piece detailing how little operational machinery there was in place to check a president’s decision to launch a nuclear attack, or halt hostilities once they had began. These procedures were so few that, if America had been on the brink of a nuclear to the point where the president had gone aboard Airforce 1 to escape an attack on the White House, his chance of contacting the Russian premier to negotiate a peace and pull back from Armageddon would depend literally on a three mile length of wire dangling from the aircraft as an emergency aerial.

And this was under Reagan, whose rhetoric and conduct towards the USSR and Communism was especially belligerent. He nearly started a nuclear holocaust himself with that stupid joke he made at a Republican rally. He stood in front of the cheering crowd, and declared that ‘Congressed has passed legislation outlawing the Soviet Union. Bombing begins in five minutes’. A little while later, the Observer reported under the headline, ‘Nearly the Last Laugh of All’, that after Reagan made that stupid joke, one of the Soviet nuclear bases in Siberia went on red alert for half an hour before standing down.

We can’t have the power to start a nuclear war, and turn this planet into a lifeless cinder, unilaterally held by the President, without a comprehensive system of check. It shouldn’t be held by Reagan, Barack Obama or Clinton, let alone a pratt like Trump.

I have a feeling that the system may have been set up the way it has been for swiftness of response. If Russia had fired nuclear missiles at America, the president could have launched a rapid counterattack in the precious last few minutes the country still existed, instead of seeking Congressional approval.
But the Americans discussing abandoning their ‘no strike first’ policy, removing this power from the presidency is a small price to pay for increased global security.

It’s also similar to a proposal in Britain to strip the Prime Minister of the right to start a war without the consent of parliament. This is precisely what Blair and his cronies did when they joined Bush in the invasion of Iraq. Looking through Waterstone’s shelves the other month, I saw a book by a British general arguing against the proposal, on the grounds that it would hinder Britain’s ability to wage war.

A fair reply to this argument would be ‘Good.’

The Iraq invasion was an illegal act of aggression, launched on a tissue of lies that Saddam Hussein was planning another attack, and had weapons of mass destruction. He wasn’t and didn’t. The result has been the destruction of one of the richest, most secular nations in the Middle East, the devastation of its priceless antiquities, and millions dead, wounded and displaced not only in Iraq itself but across the Middle East.

It plunged the country into a vicious, sectarian civil war, in which the American occupying forces gave material aid and sanction to Shia death squads, while the mercenaries employed by the West ran completely out of control. These private military contractors were responsible for prostitution to murder, sometimes just killing ordinary Iraqis and Arabs just for kicks.

There is a very strong case for hauling Blair, Bush and the other warmongers up before the Hague as war criminals. This has been tried by British, Canadian and Greek lawyers, but American pressure on the Hague War Crimes Tribunal put a stop to it. And a few weeks ago a British court also ruled that Blair could not be indicted as the war criminal he is.

Considering the horror Blair unleashed through his decision to go to war, against the wishes of over a million ordinary Brits, who marched against it – Christian, Muslim, atheist, whatever, then it’s only too right that the Prime Minister should have to call parliament before they declare war.

Donald Trump Considering Removing American First Amendment Rights?

In this brief clip from The Ring Of Fire, host Farron Cousins discusses the statement of Reince Priebus, Donald Trump’s chief of staff, that the Orange Fascist is considering abolishing the First Amendment. That’s the part of the American constitution protecting freedom of the press, assembly and the separation of church and state. Donald Trump is debating removing those freedoms because he’s upset at the press’ criticism of him.

It’s astonishing that he’s considering doing what no other president has done.

Cousins makes the obvious point that while the Republicans like to sneer at those on the left as ‘special snowflakes’, this shows that Trump is actually one of them. So much so that his fragile ego can’t take criticism and so he’s literally thinking of attacking the American constitution itself.

Cousins states that Trump won’t be able to do this. It would require a constitutional convention, in which he would need a two-thirds majority. He also wonders where the guns rights lobby are in all this. They may not care about the First Amendment, but when there’s a whiff that the government might repeal the Second, they’re out in force. But Trump has no problems removing that amendment either. He made sure that the NRA stopped attendees from bringing guns to one of his rallies. And once Trump has removed the First Amendment, he will definitely come for the Second.

It’ll be interesting to see how the American right handles this obvious statement of real, near Fascist lunacy from Trump. Secular Talk a little while carried stories about the weird accusations thrown at Barack Obama from some of the right-wing Talk Radio hosts. The Republican right pilloried Obama as a dangerous racist and a Communist bent on genocide. Two right-wing radio hosts declared that Obama was going to become a dictator, who would kill more people than Moa or Stalin. One of Trump’s own aides is a bug-eyed lunatic, who thinks that Obama is an anti-White racist determined to wipe them all out. Quite apart from Alex Jones’ rants about how Obama wanted to incarcerate Americans in FEMA camps.

All that was rubbish. It never happened. And even when Obama was in power, it was obvious that it was all tosh except to the deranged conspiratorial fringe.

But this isn’t coming from Alex Jones and the Infowars paranoiacs. It’s coming from inside Trump’s own team. It states very clearly that Trump would like to be a dictator.

And as such, it’ll be very interesting to see how Republicans like Alex Jones, loudly shouting that they, and only they, are the guardians of the Constitution, handle this statement from the man they serve and promote as the upholder of American freedom.

American Politico Rick Santorum Calls People with Medical Conditions ‘Scammers’ Trying to Steal Health Insurance

In this video from The Ring of Fire, presenter Farron Cousins rips into Republican politician Rick Santorum for his mean-spirited, bigoted comments about people with pre-existing medical conditions. Santorum appeared on CNN this week, where he described people with these conditions as ‘scammers’ who were trying to steal others’ medical care. Farron points out that he didn’t describe how this was being done, when a scam is a deceit that is carefully planned and executed. He points out that people with medical conditions like diabetes or heart conditions aren’t scammers, trying to cheat others out of their healthcare. They are often people, who haven’t even spent a day doing anything wrong, who would otherwise find it extremely difficult to get medical care without Obama’s Affordable Care Act. How dare they take medical care away from those Americans, who don’t really need it! He makes the point that this is the common Republican strategy of trying to get people to turn on each other, as they’ve done with immigration.

This time, however, it won’t work. Ill health affects everyone, regardless of their political affiliation, Republicans and Libertarians just as much as Democrats, Green Partiers or whoever. By sneering at people with these medical problems, Santorum also shows how much he despises that segment of the Republican party who have them.

Cousins then lays into Santorum’s own massive political incompetence. He’s repeatedly tried and failed to get the presidential nomination. Cousins makes the point that he’s a stupid man, who says whatever comes into his head, who has so far been fundamentally lucky, but thinks it’s due to his own cleverness. With heavy sarcasm Cousins ends the clip ‘Good luck with your political career, Mr Santorum. You’re going to need it.’

Santorum is indeed no stranger to controversy. A few years ago his vocal opposition to gay marriage resulting in outrage gays and their supporters taking their own bizarre revenge against him. The submitted his name to the Urban Dictionary as the name for a substance too crudely biological to be decently mentioned in a family website.

It would be easy to dismiss Santorum’s comments as another product of the weird mentality of the American Right, which has no relevance to us Brits. But his mindset isn’t confined to him by any means.

It’s also very much the attitude of the Tories and the Blairites in the Labour party.

Mike and the other left-wing bloggers have pointed out that welfare fraud only accounts for 0.7 per cent of benefit claims. But thanks to the Tories and their media collaborators, like the Daily Heil and the Scum, the general public believes that it’s far more than that, and that roughly a quarter of all claims are fraudulent. This is how the Tories get their support for cutting down ESA, PIP and continuing with the wretched health assessments by ATOS and now Maximus.

And speaking of the work capability assessment, let’s not let Blair and his coterie in the Labour party off the hook for introducing it. Blair introduced it based on advice from insurance fraudster Unum and its head, John Lo Cascio, based on a piece of scientifically invalid nonsense, that considers poor health to be largely determined by mental attitude. Critics of the conference in which New Labour formulated its introduction of the tests and took the advice of Unum and other private health insurance companies on its implementation have repeatedly pointed out that the policy assumes that a large number of benefit claims are simply malingering. Blair and his minions even stated this at the conference in so many words.

The result of this is that there has been a massive rise in hate crime against the disabled. Mike last week reported the case of a young man with learning difficulties, who was beaten to death by a couple of young thugs. They seem to have thought their victim was a paedophile, but Mike also points out how much of their hate was inspired by the constant demonization of the ill and disabled by the Tories and their media.

And then there’s the role of the tests in creating massive poverty in this country. Mike, Stilloaks, Johnny Void, the Angry Yorkshireman, Kitty S. Jones and many, many other left-wing bloggers have posted up the names of some of the hundreds of victims of the Work Capability Assessment, who have died of starvation, misery or despair after being thrown off benefit. There’s even a whole website devoted to criticising it and the harm it’s doing to the sick and disabled: Atos Miracles. As Mike reported, another poor woman ended her life this week, thanks to the same malignant policy.

Mike, and Jeff3, one of the commenters on this blog, have repeatedly asked the rhetorical question whether behind all this there is a deliberate eugenics programme to cleanse Britain of its disabled by stealth, just as the Nazis started murdering the congenitally ill in the infamous Aktion T4 during the Third Reich. It’s a good question. Thatcher’s mentor, Sir Keith Joseph, stirred up controversy in the 1970s when he claimed that single mothers were a threat to British genetic stock. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was Jewish, he would have fitted right in with the Nazi party.

Santorum’s stupid, bigoted comments about the long-term sick and disabled being ‘scammers’ aren’t the exception. They aren’t the peculiarly twisted view of some nutty American right-winger. They’re bog-standard across the transatlantic Right. You find them in the Tories, their Lib Dem enablers, the Blairites in the Labour Party, and screaming at you every day in the page of the Murdoch Press, the Heil, Express and other tabloids. And this is having an effect. They’re encouraging a government determined to deny people support even if, or especially if, it kills them.

If you accept Santorum’s comments, if you support the Republicans in their repeal of the Affordable Care Act, or support the Tories and Lib Dems over here, or hanker for the return of Blair or one of his cabinet of horrors to return to lead the Labour party, you are supporting this policy of bigotry, murder and death.

Scientists and Hackers Back Up Climate Data to Prevent Trump Deleting It

Here’s another act of resistance against the Trump regime. In this very short video, Farron Cousins from The Ring of Fire explains how, during Trump’s inauguration, a group of 60 climate scientists and hackers got together to go through the US government’s website to back up all the data on climate change. This information is now stored on servers in Europe. The scientists, technicians and hackers did so to prevent the information from being deliberately purged by Trump. The group intends to compare this with future releases of information on climate by Trump and his cronies in order to prevent him from falsifying evidence against climate change.

Cousins makes very short work of Kelly-Anne Conway’s statements that Trump believes in climate change. Conway is Trump’s spokeswoman, and she’s claimed that he believes in it, as he’s talked about it in the past. Well, no, he hasn’t actually. The only time the Permatanned Duce talked about it, he declared that it was ‘a Chinese hoax’.

Cousins shows how the Republicans not only do not believe in climate change, but they confuse it with weather. Conway apparently says that Trump’s aware that climate change is occurring, because the weather also changes. Cousins shows that while the weather does change from day to day, the climate is rather different. But as he says, the Republicans don’t believe climate change is real, because it still snows, so this obviously disproves global warming.

This is excellent news, as Trump has already shown his determination to expunge and falsify information on climate change through imposing gagging orders preventing officials working for the Environmental Protection Agency from publishing data that does not match the Trump-approved party line.

Other scientists are planning to organise a march on Washington as a protest against Trump’s and the Republicans’ attacks on climate science, evolution and renewable energy.

It’s great that so much is being done to defend climate science from attacks from Trump and the Republicans. And this is just one facet of a general movement by millions of people throughout the world against Trump and his policies.