Nicholas Skala RIP - Single Payer Health Care Activist, Law Student, Died August 8 2009 - What Happe

[Baobab]

Last edited Sun Feb 28, 2016, 02:54 AM - Edit history (2)

NOTE: I have no idea why this brilliant healthy 27 yo activist law student, Mr. Skala, who had dedicated his life to the cause of passing single payer, suddenly passed away or whether he had any serious health conditions, etc. (He did not look unhealthy at all in videos of him that I had seen like the one right below)

But simply explaining i away by stress (of having a House hearing upon which trillions of dollars in profits and likely millions of lives hung in the balance...coming up in just a few days.) doesnt seem so likely even under the circumstances- because so much money is involved and because it made such a huge difference to the global perception of thel US health insurance industry's image - and exporting of the health insurance model to the rest of the world as "the only possible future" the goal of a 22 year long process which began with the creation of the World Trade Organiztion and the GATS agreement - one of whose principal intentios is clearly preventing a withdrawal from the sphere of economic control because of the huge profits preservation of the health insurance model represented in a world where access to legal help was declining and governments were increasingly complicit in needless denial of care in a medical economics experiment that they already knew would fail, reminiscent of textbook cases in medical ethics tomes.

The locking down of the huge profits depended on no debate ever being able to actually occur and Obamacare staying in place and maintaining the illusion until more legitimate looking trade agreements (such as the one currently being negotiated in tight secrecy in Geneva) could somehow be signed without any public knowledge or real scrutiny.

Nick Skala Interview : Single Payer compared to "Public Option"

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Paper: The potential impact of the World Trade Organization's general agreement on trade in services on health system reform and regulation in the United States

The Activists August 2009 Archive by date

http://www.pnhpillinois.org/pipermail/activists_healthcareil.org/2009-August/date.html

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Nicholas+Skala

Achmea v. Slovak Republic ISDS Cases

http://italaw.com/cases/417

http://italaw.com/cases/2564


See also:

http://www.pnhp.org/states_flatline/State%20Health%20Reform%20Flatlines%20IJHS%20-%202008.pdf

[nationalize the fed]

1. k&r

Great post and a great interview with Nick Skala- an impressive speaker. According to this he died of "unknown causes". Hmmm-- pillow on head? No autopsy? Inquiring minds want to know! http://illinillinois.blogspot.com/2009/08/rip-nicholas-skala-chicago-advocate-for.html

The locking down of the huge profits depended on no debate ever being able to actually occur

Bingo. To make sure that no public debate happened, Obama's point man Max Baucus (D-INSURANCE) had single payer doctor/nurse advocates arrested on capitol hill.

If Republicans had single payer doctor and nurse advocates arrested at a hearing there would have been marches on DC and calls for non compliance. All of DU would have been in outrage mode. Every post would have been calling for heads on pikes.

But since a DEMOCRAT had SINGLE PAYER ADVOCATES ARRESTED most of those in the party try to blot this ugly fact right out of their minds. It's as if it didn't happen. It's a disgrace. I for one will never let it be forgotten. Ever. This was one of the biggest clusterfucks to ever happen to the mostly dumbed down citizens of the US.

Baucus's Raucous Caucus: Doctors, Nurses and Activists Arrested Again for Protesting Exclusion of Single-Payer Advocates at Senate Hearing on Healthcare
May 13, 2009

Advocates of single-payer universal healthcare — the system favored by most Americans — continue to protest their exclusion from discussions on healthcare reform. On Tuesday, five doctors, nurses and single-payer advocates were arrested at a Senate Finance Committee hearing, bringing the total number of arrests in less than a week to thirteen. We speak with two of those arrested: Single Payer Action founder Russell Mokhiber and Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program...snip
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/13/baucus_raucus_caucus_doctors_nurses_and

Having cut off the debate for single payer, Obama then promised everyone a public insurance option. But he knew he was lying, and in the end, the public didn't even get that.

What the public got is a mandate (enforced by the IRS and initially proposed by the Right Wing Heritage Foundation) to purchase corporate insurance for the rest of their lives. Insurance most people will never use because of the high deductibles and co-pays. It was a train wreck. A disaster.

NY Times Reporter Confirms Obama Made Deal to Kill Public Option
05/16/2010

For months I've been reporting in The Huffington Post that President Obama made a backroom deal last summer with the for-profit hospital lobby that he would make sure there would be no national public option in the final health reform legislation. (See here, here and here). I've been increasingly frustrated that except for an initial story last August in the New York Times, no major media outlet has picked up this important story and investigated further...snip
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/ny-times-reporter-confirm_b_500999.html

This is interesting-

What the hell is going on, a lot of people are asking. Recently, a TV station, KMOV, made a discovery. But they still haven't connected the dots. Let me help you do just that. In a 2009 paper, - Nicholas Skala, a healthy, brilliant 27 year old PNHP staffer, single payer advocate, and law student - (who suddenly died in 2009, at around the same time as his paper was published), laid out what he called a worst case scenario.

In his paper he laid out a theory- which he called a "worst case scenario" of where the Obama Administration's healthcare policy might end up, intentionally or not - trapping the United States in for profit healthcare in such a way that no future Administration could extricate us from it. this lock would be irreversible. In effect giving away our country's right to determine its heath care policy. For nothing....snip more:
https://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/25u4p0/i_think_i_may_have_found_a_smoking_gun_of_an/

[Meldo]

2. Conspiracy

Nick wasn't killed by pillow, or any other method, by insurance companies trying to silence him, although he would find the assertion highly amusing.