AMERICA AND ISRAEL, A HEALTH CARE COMPARISON

By Gordon Duff

Editors note: Rumors are still flying about the “Obamacare” bill. If there were problems with the new law, and there are problems, the last place to go would be to your news provider, especially if that provider is part of the vast network of deception that has enfeebled Americans to the point where any rational decision making is now a joke. We don’t even need the phony elections we pretend to have, with or without the rigged voting machines. Fox News could simply invent it all, nobody would know any difference, not until the lights went out and the Canadian Army showed up at the door to rescue us. That time is coming.

When did the divisions that turned middle class and working Americans into a howling mob start? You won’t read it in history books or see it on TV. It won’t make Fox News or the New York Times. If Americans knew what total asses they have made of themselves over the years, they might not believe everything they hear quite so readily. Pretty soon, yelling about the boogieman and pointing fingers around won’t hide crimes like 9/11 or, more recently, the attempt to convince Americans that watching your children get sick and die might be fun, even patriotic. What is the life of a child, or a thousand children when “socialism” is lurking about?

The first big “health care/socialism” debate was Social Security, back in the 1930s. Republicans told people that Social Security would destroy the economy, bring socialism and “wasn’t in the Constitution.” Of course, America’s economy was in total collapse anyway, due to Republican monetary policies (see Bush administration) and, during the middle of the debate, the GOP tried to organize a takeover of the United States government. The idea was to save America from that nasty “socialism” but bringing in their own version called “national socialism.” We call it “Nazi.”

This is a look at what drove that period in our history, a history erased from our lives but alive and well in our world just the same. Let’s start with the attempted coup against President Roosevelt. This attempt to arrest the President and install a facist dictatorship based on Hitler’s Germany stalled when the Marine general, Smedly Butler, chosen to lead the Legionaires against our government turned them in instead. However, the stink of this period and this attempted coup remains to this day:

Although the coup never materialized, the unrelenting propaganda attack against Roosevelt and the New Deal reforms continued, spearheaded by the American Liberty League. The League listed as its main contributors the Du Pont family, representatives of the Morgan interests, Robert Sterling Clark, the Pew Family (Sun Oil) and Rockefeller Associates. The League itself was ostensibly dedicated to the virtues of the Constitution, individual freedom and free market capitalism. But it claimed all New Deal reforms were inspired by Communists within the Roosevelt administration.

Although the League disbanded after Roosevelt won his second term, it spawned a series of extreme right-wing groups and paramilitary bands which constituted a network that endured through the 1960s, and whose descendants are with us today. Their propaganda was anti-Communist and anti-Semitic; their tactic was violence. Some groups which the League financed were the Sentinels of the Republic (which labeled the New Deal “Jewish Communism”), the Minutemen and the Minutewomen. Another group, the Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution, was associated with the Silver Shirt Squad of the American Storm Troopers.

The main function of these hate groups was to enforce the will of right-wing corporate America, seeking to regain the political power it lost in the 1932 election. On the grassroots level, this intention translated into supporting the efforts of management to stop workers from unionizing. The most glaring example of this was the struggle at the General Motors plants. (General Motors was owned by the DuPonts). The Du Ponts employed the Black Legion, a sort of Northern Klux Klux Klan, which would terrorize workers, bomb union halls, and torture and murder organizers. The Legion was organized into arson squads, execution squads, and anti-Communist squads. Discipline within its own ranks was maintained with the weapons of torture or death and was strictly enforced. The LaFollette Committee found that the Legion had penetrated police departments, high government offices, and the Michigan Republican Party.

These groups also acted as intelligence networks. They infiltrated unions, leftwing groups, and universities, and sold their information to industry. One example of such an intelligence agency was the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation, headquartered in Chicago and operated by Harry Jung. Jung later relocated to New Orleans where he was an associate of Guy Banister, who also hailed from Chicago. Banister’s Detective Agency was spying for right-wing businesses as well. Some believe it may have been Jung’s hotel in New Orleans that the famous Congress of Freedom meeting took place in the Spring of 1963. At this meeting, with Edwin Walker and Joseph Milteer in attendance, a police informant reported there was talk of murdering national leaders.

In the Thirties, corporate America’s fear of government regulation threatened by Roosevelt’s New Deal, (“Socialism” in their minds), gave them a reason to embrace Fascism. It justified their financing of paramilitary hate groups to carry out violent, anti-government and anti-union campaigns exploiting the vehicles of racism, anti-Semitism and anti-Communism. By the Sixties these groups had become entrenched in the grassroots landscape.

We call them the Republican Party. With the onset of “Christian Zionism” and the desire to bring about the apocalypse and rapture, the anti-Semitic aspect of the GOP slowly went away, beginning in the 1990s and the focus on Israel and Middle East oil became the rallying cry.
Prior to that, poor were put in county homes, work farms or kept committed to insane asylums as a form of “retirement.” The next big fight was against minimum wages. The idea that workers had to be paid enough to live was seen as “socialism” and it was pointed out that there was no mention of “minimum wage” in the Constitution. Partnering with the “freedom” given to those working with no minimum wage was the GOP’s war against unions. Prior to labor unions, American factories were virtual prisons where workers were forced to spend endless hours at machines, often in 130 degree heat, pissing on themselves and being beaten or worse if the spoke up.

As the Israelis remind us daily, those who forget the holocaust are only welcoming its return. Well, Americans who forgot this period of slavery that lasted, especially in the south, well into the 1970s, are simply asking for it to come back, child labor and all. We could go on and on, civil rights, voting rights but today we are talking about fear. Normally, terrorism and the duping of America into a decade of tax cuts for the rich, rigged oil prices and the looting of America’s real estate portfolio and pension funds would be the direction of discussion. “Oh goodness, a plane crashed into one building and another one nearby collapsed for no reason. I am afraid, I had best not ask questions about that.”

DUMB WOULDN’T BE DUMB AND DANGEROUS WITHOUT PROPAGANDA

Healthcare fear comes from one place, primarily, Israel. How do I mean that? Well, the voice behind the fight against healthcare is Glen Beck and the gang at Fox News. They work for Israeli, Rupert Murdoch, frontman for the extremist and very anti-American Likud party in Israel. So, if you didn’t know it, Israel, whose healthcare expenses are paid for by America, led the fight against healthcare in America for Americans. It makes me thankful, how about you?

If Israel and their spokesmen Limbaugh and Beck hate government healthcare so much, exactly what does Israel do in the “private sector” that we should emulate?

THE ISRAELI SYSTEM OF HEALTH CARE, SO RIGHT FOR THEM, SO WRONG FOR US

This is how Israel, the “democracy” of the Middle East, with an ultra-conservative government fights socialism in their healthcare system:

In Israel, the National Health Insurance Law (or National Health Insurance Act) is the legal framework which enables and facilitates basic, compulsory universal health care. The Law was put into effect by the Knesset on January 1, 1995, and was based on recommendations put forward by a National Committee of Inquiry which examined restructuring the health care system in Israel in the late 1980s.

Prior to the law’s passage approximately 85% of the population was already covered by voluntarily belonging to one of four nation-wide, not-for-profit sickness funds which run their own medical facilities funded in part by employers and the governmentand in part by the insured by levies which vary according to income. However, there were three problems associated with this arrangement. First, membership in the largest fund, Clalit, required one to belong to the Histadrut labor organization, even if a person did not wish to (or could not) have such an affiliation while other funds restricted entry to new members based on age, pre-existing conditions or other factors. Second, different funds provided different levels of benefit coverage or services to their members and lastly was the issue mentioned above whereby a certain percentage of the population, albeit a small one, did not have health insurance coverage at all.

Before the law went into effect, all the funds collected premiums directly from members. However, upon passage of the law, a new progressive national health insurance tax was levied through Israel’s social security agency which then re-distributes the proceeds to the sickness funds based on their membership and its demographic makeup.

This ensured that all citizens would now have health coverage. While membership in one of the funds now became compulsory for all, free choice was introduced into movement of members between funds (a change is allowed once every six months), effectively making the various sickness funds compete equally for members among the populace.

Annually, a committee appointed by the ministry of health publishes a “basket” or uniform package of medical services and prescription formularywhich all funds must provide as a minimum service to all their members. Achieving this level of equality ensured that all citizens are guaranteed to receive basic healthcare regardless of their fund affiliation which was one of the principal aims of the law. An appeals process was put in place to handle rejection of treatments and procedures by the funds and evaluating cases falling outside the “basket” of services or prescription formulary.

While the law is generally considered a success and Israeli citizens enjoy a high standard of medical care comparatively, with more competition having been introduced into the field of health care in the country, and order having been brought into what was once a somewhat disorganized system, the law nevertheless does have its critics.

First and foremost among the criticisms raised is that the “basket” may not provide enough coverage. To partly address this issue, the HMOs and insurance companies (often in conjunction with employers) began offering additional “supplementary” insurance to cover certain additional services not included in the basket. However, since this insurance is optional, critics argue that it goes against the spirit of the new law which stressed equality among all citizens with respect to healthcare. Another criticism is that in order to provide universal coverage to all, the tax income base amount (the maximum amount of yearly earnings that are subject to the tax) was set rather high, causing many high-income taxpayers to see the amount they pay for their health premiums (now health tax) skyrocket. Finally, some complain about the constantly rising costs of copayments for certain services.

20 YEARS LATER, IS ISRAEL SUFFERING THE “SOCIALISM” AND “DISASTER” THEY ARE WARNING US AGAINST?

Many American Jews are enrolled in the Israeli healthcare system and people from around the world go to Israel for medical care under this system, a system almost identical to the original “Obamacare” we were warned about. The Israeli system is both efficient and flexible with regular reviews. As noted, there are criticisms regarding copayments and some opt for additional private insurance.

This system is far better and far more efficient and cost effective than the system we just put in place. This was what we were offered but as an attempt to compromise, we accepted something much less and more costly.

WHAT DOES THIS PROVE?

• There was vast profit in the unfair and ineffective system we had, leading greedy and heartless people to lie about the benefits of taking on the Israeli model, even though many of the people most opposed to the new American system are either Jews or, in fact Israeli citizens, the most powerful single force in America’s news media.
• How can we call Israel a democracy when their healthcare system, by Glen Becks standards would make them a communist dictatorship? Is Glen Beck a lying blowhard and his supporters ignorant dupes and fools?
• It certainly proves that we live in nation whose press is totally controlled. Why would there never be a second of mention of Israelis highly successful compulsory healthcare system in the entire year of debate? Would this have stopped the massive inflow of money from America’s Jewish lobby against the Obama/Israeli plan?

WHAT DO AMERICANS DESERVE?

It’s simple. Americans deserve for themselves what they are paying for in Israel, universal healthcare for everyone. I look across the news, the internet and see the rage against the idea of universal healthcare. I remember the rage over clean air and clean water, how water without solvents and carcinogens was going to destroy our capitalistic system, how clean air was going to bring America to its knees as though filth and disease were the great icons of character that defined us.

If you get it without having to search, it is worthless. Go to your television, go right now. No, stop, don’t open the window and scream, “I’m mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore.” Just go to the TV, tune to Fox News and then go to the window, open it and say, “I am never going to believe anything on Fox News ever again, not even the sports scores and weather.”

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/03/23/gordon-duff-america-and-israel-a-health-care-comparison/

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